“the average American student is “less than halfway to a full academic recovery” from the effects of the pandemic.”
…
“Many factors probably contribute to students’ slow recovery, experts say. Some may have missed “foundational pieces” of reading and math in 2020 and 2021, Lewis said. Learning loss can be like a “compounding debt,” she explained, with skills missed in early grades causing bigger and bigger problems as kids get older. Chronic absenteeism also remains a big obstacle to learning. Twenty-six percent of students were considered chronically absent in 2022-23, up from 13 percent in 2019-2020.
Children who are in kindergarten and first grade today were too young to experience the shift to remote learning in 2020 and 2021. But they were more likely to be isolated from other children and adults, Lake said. And like their older counterparts, many also experienced the trauma of deaths in the family, poverty, and parents out of work, all of which could have affected their social and emotional development.
Some have argued that pandemic learning loss shouldn’t be a concern because all students were affected — maybe, the argument goes, learning is just different now.
But that’s not the case, experts say.
Students from wealthier school districts are already well on their way to recovery, while students in lower-income areas continue to struggle. “Not everybody is in the same boat,” Kane said.”
https://www.vox.com/education/372475/math-reading-school-covid-education-learning-loss-kids