Projecting the Potential Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement

As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019–2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational researcher Vol. 49; no. 8; pp. 549 - 565
Main Authors: Kuhfeld, Megan, Soland, James, Tarasawa, Beth, Johnson, Angela, Ruzek, Erik, Liu, Jing
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2020
American Educational Research Association
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Achievement Gains
Attendance
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Distance Education
Economic Impact
Educational Technology
Elementary School Students
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Learning
Learning Processes
Mathematics Achievement
Middle School Students
Natural Disasters
Pandemics
Reading Achievement
School Closing
School closures
Social Influences
Student Characteristics
Students
Summer Programs
Weather
planning
elementary schools
achievement
middle schools
hierarchical linear modeling
testing
ISSN:0013-189X, 1935-102X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019–2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a) estimates from absenteeism literature and (b) analyses of summer learning patterns of 5 million students. Under our projections, returning students are expected to start fall 2020 with approximately 63 to 68% of the learning gains in reading and 37 to 50% of the learning gains in mathematics relative to a typical school year. However, we project that losing ground during the school closures was not universal, with the top third of students potentially making gains in reading.
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ISSN:0013-189X
1935-102X
DOI:10.3102/0013189X20965918