In math, Black students lost 13 points, compared with five points among white students, widening the gap between the two groups. Research has documented the profound effect school closures had on low-income students and on Black and Hispanic students, in part because their schools were more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time.
September 1, 2022
"The Pandemic Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading."
"The results of a national test showed just how devastating the last two years have been for 9-year-old schoolchildren, especially the most vulnerable."
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Yeah...no.
The education system in this country didn't need any help from the pandemic. Never before have taxpayers paid so much for so little.
Of course closing the schools is going to be most disruptive for those without means. My wife and I could (and did) work from home, our income was uninterrupted. Our daughter has her own computer and we can help her any time she gets into trouble.
We know an immigrant family with 3 children and 1 computer. My wife called a few friends and got donations of old computers to make sure they had one for every child. Not ideal, as the computers were a bit dated and therefore buggy, but far better than the alternative.
But what about those families where the parents can't stay home? Where there is 1 or no computers for multiple children and there's nothing they can do about it?
This was completely predictable.
This unforced error is entirely on the Democrat party, the Fake News, the teachers' unions, Joe Biden and Tony Fauci.
The Left hates children and uses them to achieve their insane policies.
Why can't people see this?
The "pandemic" didn't do this; it was the response, to the "pandemic" that did this. Let's get the story right, ok?
Aside from planned parent/hood, metabolically dysfunctional individuals, and denial of personal choice to health care, the liberal response to a mildly pathogenic virus aborted two decades of progress. One step forward, two steps backward.
The pandemic didn't do this, the Dem-controlled state governments did this. The teachers' unions did this.
Also, where were the parents? We're not talking about AP calc or chemistry, we're talking about 9-year-olds learning to read and do basic math. That should be something almost any parent can teach at home.
World ends, minorities hardest hit. But this time for real.
The pandemic didn't do it. It was a very minor illness for children. It was politicians who prioritized teachers over children who did it.
There's a nursing home near me with a sign up these last years, "Heroes work here." They took care of those old people during the pandemic, and no one suggested that they should stay home for their own safety. Heroes.
all according to "The Plan"
The pandemic didn't do it. It was a very minor illness for children. It was politicians who prioritized teachers over children who did it.
There's a nursing home near me with a sign up these last years, "Heroes work here." They took care of those old people during the pandemic, and no one suggested that they should stay home for their own safety. Heroes.
The pandemic didn't do it. It was a very minor illness for children. It was politicians who prioritized teachers over children who did it.
There's a nursing home near me with a sign up these last years, "Heroes work here." They took care of those old people during the pandemic, and no one suggested that they should stay home for their own safety. Heroes.
It was either that or kill grandma
For some people in the education profession, that decline is progress.
On the other hand, what a black person loses is easier to make up since they have less to start with.
'In the tragic vision, individual sufferings and social evils are inherent in the innate deficiencies of all human beings, whether these deficiencies are in knowledge, wisdom, morality, or courage. Moreover, the available resources are always inadequate to fulfill all the desires of all the people. Thus there are no "solutions" in the tragic vision, but only trade-offs that still leave many unfulfilled and much unhappiness in the world.' — Thomas Sowell, 'The Vision of the Anointed' p. 113
One would be hard pressed to find any entity that inflicted more destruction on our country that our elites in DC over the past 4 decades or so. Maybe if they created a Federal Department of Education.
Paraphrasing the Anointed One: "Never underestimate the ability of the Federal Government to screw things up (royally)."
@ Mr Wibble - You underestimate how many parents can't help with basic math because they aren't very good at it themselves. Since these parents are more likely to be black than white, less classroom instruction will hit black kids harder.
Re: tim maguire:
But what about those families where the parents can't stay home?
That was my immediate thought on reading the excerpt. Single parent families are more likely to be low income, and also more likely to have difficulty if their child/children aren't able to leave to go to school. And from a remote learning perspective, you can't dump a bunch of children on grandma and expect them all to be able to do remote learning effectively, even if you donate enough computers.
Implied bullshit. Math and reading scores were on a trajectory towards zero for a long time. Look at percentages of kids reading or mathing at grade level or below for the twenty years prior to the pandemic. I’m tired of the China Virus being blamed for the damage that progressive education had accomplished long before the WuFlu hit our shores. If you weren’t reading well above “grade level” then you were lagging behind when I was in elementary middle and high school.
So, will anyone be held accountable for the gross negligence, foreseeable and actually foreseen?
I think not. Teachers and their unions insisting on remote "learning" will not be punished. No alarmist epidemiologist will be fired. Fauci will enjoy his pension without losing sleep. Here and there, voters may vote out a Dem for malfeasance, but rarely. After all, both parties are equally loathsome. Etc.
So much for "social justice." No one actually cares.
“… a mildly pathogenic virus…”
What absolute idiocy. Over a million dead…from a mildly pathogenic virus?
Yeah, not the pandemic, policy.
'In math, Black students lost 13 points, compared with five points among white students,...'
Isn't this just the normal performance gap?
Sounds like a 'Women and minorities hardest hit' story...
And D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is not allowing unvaccinated children back in school or continuing virtual learning this fall. I linked to a "fact check" version of the story for the rebuttal too:
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-dc-vaccines/fact-check-district-of-columbia-school-plan-will-not-exclude-teens-unvaccinated-against-covid-before-january-idUSL1N3071HR
Is there data comparing areas which limited closures to those that did not? I’ve spent the past 2 years extremely grateful, and constantly reminding my kids how lucky we are, to live in Tennessee, where schools opened in fall 2020 and stayed that way. I have a 9 year old son myself, and it seems things are fine and on track.
But I’d really like to see some hard numbers to compare. (I can’t read the article, so maybe this is covered.)
…women and minorities hardest hit…
"In math, Black students lost 13 points, compared with five points among white students, widening the gap between the two groups."
It would be interesting to see the data based on the number of days of school lost. For example, if Black students missed 2 days of school for every 1 day that white students missed (because Black students are more likely to be in school systems in NYC or Chicago that were shut down) then there is a significantly different inference to be drawn.
Teacher's Unions: The most regressive force in America.
Thank God Brandon has opened up the schools closed under Trump's Reich.
Research has documented the profound effect school closures had on low-income students and on Black and Hispanic students, in part because their schools were more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time.
I don't think it is a minority/racist thing - it is a leftist lunacy thing. Minorities are heavily concentrated in cities that have not had a Republican mayor for decades, and the leftists bowed down to the teachers unions in left-run cities and stayed closed later.
So school shutdowns were racist.
It wasn't the pandemic that "erased" two decades of gains, it was "Teacher's" Unions and their Democrat lackeys that erased them with their horrid response to Covid
I was a huge fan of distance learning. Turns out that I was wrong. This sucks
But refusing to admit it doesn't make it suck less
Large segments of the student population rarely or never logged into their remote classes during covid. Teachers and administrators had to be aware of this, yet they basically refused to resume in-person classes out of exaggerated fears of something that, for the vast majority of the non-elderly, was not a serious health threat. This proved once again that leftists DO NOT CARE about the little people (here, literally) whose interests they claim to be serving.
But there's another, equally depressing aspect to this: Before America started sliding into socialism, poor people generally recognized and understood that the way to get ahead was through education and hard work, because that was largely the truth. Today, folks look around and see that government intends to support them cradle to grave regardless of their individual ability to contribute to society. So they see no point in their kids' learning math and other subjects that are needed for gainful employment. Many of them WOULD like to see their kids "educated" in the subject of racial grievance so that the next generation can maintain the sense of victimization needed to feel like the handouts they receive are deserved, and should be increased.
This was done on purpose by evil people.
The Branch Covidians put their selfishness and fear over the needs of the next generation.
The people like Bill Gates need to be removed from society. Our entire education establishment is just a part of the Regime. It is all hopelessly corrupt and they need to be purged.
Ann whines about politicians using words like Hammer but she ignores what people actually do.
The people who ruined the lives of these children for 2 years over COVID used pretty language but they deserve to be executed.
The social contagion erased... killed... aborted two decades of human development in critical thinking.
That should be something almost any parent can teach at home.
Mom and dad are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. Reconcile.
The blogger educationrealist has discussed the main reason that districts continued to keep schools remote-only was that a majority of parents wanted it that way. This is a very long post, with multiple sources in polls, research articles and personal experiences, and you should read the whole thing, but here's one summary paragraph:
For another, like most issues involving education, viewing the issue through a racial prism is instructive–even if, as in this case, it’s hard to figure out why the racial aspect exists. Any poll on parent preference that controlled for race–which was most of them–showed the same results: white parents were consistently distinct from non-whites. They were the first to demand school openings, in-person instruction, and the first to reject mask mandates and vaccine mandates.
https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2022/04/04/the-real-reason-for-school-closures/
I'm old enough to remember when online education would replace brick and mortar schools. Students could study whatever and whenever they liked!
It was gonna be a Great Big Wonderful Tomorrow!
Turned out it only works for a few autistic nerds, oh and the students who actually logged on and did the work. Who tended to do well anyway.
Is this article laying down suppressing fire for the next 5 years? Seems like an "Authoritarian Source" to be rolled out at will by the left. Education needs more $$$$$$$!
the leftists bowed down to the teachers unions in left-run cities and stayed closed later.
Because we're talking debit elementary aged kids, my hypothesis about school closure in left-run cities is probably not fully relevant - though I attended one such school many years ago when I was 12 and can attest that even back then it did pertain to done degree.
My hypothesis: teachers in schools in which discipline takes up a heavy percentage of class time may have voted with their unions to keep schools closed longer, because when only the engaged students "show up," they can actually teach instead of spending half the class time dealing with disruptions.
Meaning that, as with student loan forgiveness, green (and inadequate) energy initiatives, and runaway inflation, COVID was the pretext, not the cause.
The very definition of institutionalized racism: Whiter, wealthier teachers unions prioritizing their interests over poorer minority students’.
Serious Question how many inner city children EVER signed on to 'remote learning'?
If one group reads textbooks, and does homework, and takes tests.. And another watches TV...
Which group learns more math? Just asking
What a turgidy - I mean tragedy. In 20 years, if you look around the faculty room in any American Math department, you won't see a single black face.
Same as now.
before Covid, big city schools were spending tens of THOUSANDS of dollars A YEAR on "teaching"
not many learned ANYTHING; but. at least it was daycare.
During Covid, they continued to spend, and continued to NOT teach.. But quit the day care function
I understand The Propose of School is to provide good wages to white women; but what about the kids?
$20k/yr * 12yr = $240k plus earned interest... Can ANYONE show me that inner city kids wouldn't be better off with that in cash? Sure, they'd still be illiterate; but they good buy their own home
Blogger Greg The Class Traitor said...
It wasn't the pandemic that "erased" two decades of gains, it was "Teacher's" Unions and their Democrat lackeys that erased them with their horrid response to Covid
Exactly although the teachers' unions had a lot of help from Birx and Fauci. Florida is a useful control group here. DeSantis showed the courage that was needed to resist.
The Great Barrington Declaration gave him the correct advice. Trump wanted to do the same but his advisors resisted and he complied.
There are two things going on in our public schools: a sharp drop in the number of students attending, and a sharp drop in the number of teachers.
Parents who can are moving their kids to private schools, charters, or religious schools. Others- the brave ones with time- are homeschooling. But all of these categories are growing while our public schools are losing people. I wonder why?
And I read articles about how massive our teacher shortage is. Or depending on what magazine or newspaper, how overblown it is. But the numbers I'm reading say we're short an estimated 300,000 teachers nationally. That's a pretty huge gap.
And it's an opportunity. To change our education system. Start by eliminating the Federal Dept. of Education, which, at best, gets in the way of actual education and should have no say in local school direction. Then, eliminate the Teachers Unions (both the NEA and AFT). You can't do it by law, but you can do it by depopulating them. You do this by....
Opening the hiring of teachers to any persons competent in the specific areas. Degreed professional engineers are probably better at teaching math or physics than an education major who took a couple of math courses. There are plenty of brilliant people working day to day jobs in corporations who would love to be teaching kids. And I suspect not many (if any) would be prone to joining up with Randi Weingarten's view of education and her union.
Mr Wibble said...
That should be something almost any parent can teach at home.
Well, that only works if the parent is at home, or has time to teach one or more kids after they've worked their normal job.
Despite all the claims about 'lockdowns' I would venture to guess that at least half if not more of the population had to keep working. Somebody had to pack all those Amazon packages, pack the delivery trucks, drive the delivery trucks, repair the delivery trucks, fuel the delivery trucks, keep the lights on for all the people packing, repairing, and fueling, keep the water following for the lights and trucks, etc. Now multiply that by all the other essential services like fire, hospitals and care centers, grocery stores, etc. The vision that the entire country was gonna sit on our collective asses for any length of time was never realistic, and should have been as obvious as the nose on your face to more people than it seems to have occurred to. The only people who benefited from lockdowns were the laptop class that don't have to assemble at a physical jobsite and the politically connected like the teacher's unions.
The pandemic did no such thing. The scum who took Randi Weingarten's money, and the fools who voted for them, did.
Blaming the pandemic for stuff is the biggest drug companies windfall.
What an insane article. So many abstractions.
So black and Hispanic students AS A GROUP, on average, fell behind White AS A GROUP. On a test. why is the test important? WHy should we care about the test? Is the test accurate? We don't know.
Here's my deal. I don't care that Group X containing millions of people, is on AVERAGE, behind Group Z containing millions of people. And i certainly don't care that they do so on a TEST, which may or may not be an accurate measure of their knowledge. And how many people took the test? Is this just a sample (samples are another problem)?
WHen all is said and done, how does this effect the real life black/Hispanic student sitting in a real life classroom?
Of course the pandemic is guilty and the teachers are innocent.
What rubbish!
The public school liberal education establishment and Teachers Unions pushed for extending school closures. They knew it would hurt minority kids the most, and didn't care. The did it all their politics.
They are still pushing the poison mRNA shots on these kids.
The education establishment and Teachers Unions should be bulldozed, demolished, and hammered.
Also, what progress?
Chicago Teachers Union Tweet Dec 6, 2020:
"The push to reopen schools is rooted in in sexism, racism, and misogyny."
Bulldoze the Chicago Teachers Union.
From an editing perspective, the notion the pandemic caused school decline is terrible. I see no comparisons to other countries or prior pandemics. In fact, the article itself says it wasn't due to the pandemic.
If the government did the same lockdowns today, the same thing would happen. With or without an accompanying pandemic. So basic logical testing indicates the pandemic didn't cause it, but the lockdowns did/would again.
It is past time to point very large fingers at the results of actions that specific people called for over and over and claimed there was no reasonable argument against.
It is past time for a reckoning of public figures AND social networks who shut down debate and worked to prevent discussion on.
COVID-19 in the U.S. is a case study in why the antidote to bad speech is MORE speech and not restricting speech. It's also a case study in why you never believe someone who claims the science is settled in support of their argument and who will not entertain other views as to what the "science" says to do.
From an editing perspective, the notion the pandemic caused school decline is terrible. I see no comparisons to other countries or prior pandemics. In fact, the article itself says it wasn't due to the pandemic.
If the government did the same lockdowns today, the same thing would happen. With or without an accompanying pandemic. So basic logical testing indicates the pandemic didn't cause it, but the lockdowns did/would again.
It is past time to point very large fingers at the results of actions that specific people called for over and over and claimed there was no reasonable argument against.
It is past time for a reckoning of public figures AND social networks who shut down debate and worked to prevent discussion on.
COVID-19 in the U.S. is a case study in why the antidote to bad speech is MORE speech and not restricting speech. It's also a case study in why you never believe someone who claims the science is settled in support of their argument and who will not entertain other views as to what the "science" says to do.
From an editing perspective, the notion the pandemic caused school decline is terrible. I see no comparisons to other countries or prior pandemics. In fact, the article itself says it wasn't due to the pandemic.
If the government did the same lockdowns today, the same thing would happen. With or without an accompanying pandemic. So basic logical testing indicates the pandemic didn't cause it, but the lockdowns did/would again.
It is past time to point very large fingers at the results of actions that specific people called for over and over and claimed there was no reasonable argument against.
It is past time for a reckoning of public figures AND social networks who shut down debate and worked to prevent discussion on.
COVID-19 in the U.S. is a case study in why the antidote to bad speech is MORE speech and not restricting speech. It's also a case study in why you never believe someone who claims the science is settled in support of their argument and who will not entertain other views as to what the "science" says to do.
"More results, for fourth graders and for eighth graders, will be released later this fall on a state-by-state level."
They ran a special administration of these tests last Winter. They've had the data from those tests since then. They released this information that startled the Times just recently and will hold the rest for several months.
It doesn't seem terribly critical to our federal education establishment to get the information out. Why the delays? It's just computerized data from 15,000 tests.
Is it politics or the result of a self-sustaining bureaucracy that is using the data and the staggered release to manipulate opinion and to call for even more federal money?
That was their conclusion - schools and teachers need more money.
There’s nothing really to worry about. The University of Wisconsin system will admit these kids somewhere. They can drop out after freshman year and be $25K in debt, or sophomore year and be $50K in debt. Win-Win for the libs.
Blogger Inga said... “… a mildly pathogenic virus…”. What absolute idiocy. Over a million dead…from a mildly pathogenic virus
Hey Inga, got any numbers on how many die every year from flu? Cause if you do let me tell you a little secret: they’re low. Like a million low, at least when comparing how Covid deaths were measured. You see, in the old days, the pre-hysteria days, an old fella at the nursing home would get the flu then go downhill and finally die two weeks later. And the death certificate would read: “Cause of Death: Failure to thrive.” Didja notice what word wasn’t on there? Flu. But it was the flu that triggered the Failure to thrive.
With Covid it worked differently. A young man gets in a motorcycle crash, they haul him into the hospital where three days later he dies, three crucial days later where he managed to pick up the Covid virus and test positive. And his Death Certificate? It reads: “Covid.”
See how it works when medicine has been politicized? You can take your million Covid deaths number and flush it down the toilet. But I’m sure you won’t because in your tribe toilets aren’t permitted.
Remember when Madison, WI didn’t want white parents to form educational study groups for their kids during the lock downs because it was racist to try and keep their children’s education on pace?
Tells you everything you need to know about the attitude of the liberal education establishment.
Dave Begley said...The Left hates children and uses them to achieve their insane policies.
100% correct. The push for dangerous mRNA shots continues. First, lock the kids in failing schools to protect your pension. Then lock them out. Next, poison them as part of a political medical experiment. Wonderful people.
Does anyone know if the dancing trannies are required to be vaccinated before performing for the kiddies?
Well the goal IS to produce nothing but drones, terrified drones, so looks like things are working out.
All of you readers without school aged kids have no idea how bad things are right now in school. I homeschooled COVID year. And my kids came back far ahead of all of their peers. We were not even trying to get ahead. I had to go back and reteach one of my children a bunch of math that she was supposedly proficient in the year before. This kind of stuff happened with each of my kids.
Two years in and they're still making more gains.
Progress is a fungible concept.
Btw, because we didn't subject our kids to online learning or masks because we homeschooled instead, my younger kids have no real concept of the pandemic. They had a great year outside exploring and playing. And because we have more than two kids, there was always someone to play with.
Hey Inga, guess how many illegals come over every year? I guess you cant call it a minor problem. By your own definition.
But you will.
After two years of sitting on their fat asses 'educating' children and you know what they're doing now? Going on strike.
Kent School District is already on strike. Seattle soon to follow.
Goons. Worthless, union goons.
"The Pandemic lockdowns Erased Two Decades of Progress in Math and Reading."
Fixed.
Thank God Brandon has opened up the schools closed under Trump's Reich.
Add this one to the list of things that Howie doesn't understand.
School maskings and closings were statewide decisions, not federal. How else could Ron DeSantis kill so many children by keeping schools open.
In AZ the state usually left decisions on masking and closing to individual counties.
Tree Joe comments on "science":
Some nobody named Richard Feynman once wrote "Science is the belief in the fallibility of experts." But, like, what did he know, right? Besides, dead white man, right?
High and low performers had been diverging even before the pandemic, but now, “the students at the bottom are dropping faster,” Dr. Carr said.
The real questions that need to be asked and answered are, "What was the cause of divergence before the pandemic and how can we fix that?"
The building didn't fall down because of the storm, it fell down because the foundation was inadequate. Fix the foundation!
I'm sounding like a broken record in my comments, but gosh, who could have seen that coming?
Who could have foreseen inflation from printing money?
Who could have expected high energy prices to benefit Putin?
'Remember when Madison, WI didn’t want white parents to form educational study groups for their kids during the lock downs because it was racist to try and keep their children’s education on pace?'
Remember when Democrats didn't want black kids to go to the same schools as white kids, and even passed laws to make that happen?
The drop in black performance is not from a very high number to begin with. The situation for black kids is catastrophic
But, like, what did he know, right? Besides, dead white man, right?
9/1/22, 2:19 PM
Surely you're joking.
I would implore the talented tenth from all HBCU's to send plane loads of people to educate children of color over the US and let them achieve. But they are off becoming Doctors and lawyers. You can't argue with that.
"In 20 years, if you look around the faculty room in any American Math department, you won't see a single black face."
They'll just lower their standards some more, to achieve that all important equity.
People who cannot do simple math make better Democrats anyway. Win-win!
What Michael said. Kids who fall below the bar of the "average white kid" know essentially nothing.
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