The media may occasionally observe the massive learning loss caused by shuttered schools during the COVID pandemic -- an unnecessary and harmful measure encouraged by left-wing teachers unions, which protested reopening schools, sometimes with disgusting anti-back-to-school protests, even after it was obvious that children were the group least affected by COVID and could safely return to school.
But there was no mention in Tuesday’s story on learning loss on PBS of how teachers’ unions actively worked to scuttle school openings in the fall of 2020 and beyond, keeping schools shuttered in some blue areas for nearly two years. The segment stands as a clear example of bias by omission from the taxpayer-funded network.
Host Amna Nawaz set the scene.
Nawaz: Billions of dollars were funneled to school districts across the United States to help them make up for learning loss from the pandemic. But new research shows that, even with that extra money, school districts are still struggling to close the gaps in reading, writing and math that grew during the pandemic. Stephanie Sy has more on these findings and where we go from here.
Stephanie Sy: Amna, this research analyzed data for more than 6.5 million public school students in third through eighth grades, comparing their academic gains from 2022 to 2023 with pre-pandemic years. The study authors estimate that most students would need, on average, an additional 4.5 months of math instruction and four months of reading instruction to catch up. I'm joined now by Karyn Lewis, director of the Center for School and Student Progress and a lead researcher at NWEA, the organization that came out with this new study. Karyn, thank you so much for joining the NewsHour….
Lewis was disheartened to find recent backsliding, as “the gaps between current achievement levels relative to pre-pandemic trends actually widened.”
Sy offered a mild retort to the “trust the schools” narrative.
Sy: You know, some are saying that the federal government, they're pointing out that the federal government put billions of dollars to help schools recover from the pandemic and that part of that focus was to get students back up to speed to pre-pandemic achievement. Does some accountability lie with how school districts spent that money, in your view?
Lewis defended schools’ shoddy performance post-COVID: They just need (wait for it) more funding!
Lewis: In my view, it's too soon to really see those efforts pay off….And I think we know need to have some empathy for what it's like on the ground. Districts are not set up to be nimble and on the turn of a dime be able to implement a high-dosage tutoring program to thousands of students….it certainly is not the time to withdraw federal supports. If anything, it's time to double down and make sure that we are supporting schools, so that they can sustain and ramp up these efforts in the coming years.
Sy wondered if liberal education failures should just be flushed down the memory hole, actually suggesting we move the goalposts on expectations:
Sy: ….one question I have is whether the goalposts have moved for everyone or need to move. Is it realistic at this point for educators and parents to expect that their children will catch up to the achievement that we were seeing pre-pandemic?
At least Lewis found that “new normal” of (teachers union-fostered) underachievement unacceptable: “I don't think we can just shrug our shoulders and accept that this is how things are.”
This biased segment was sponsored in part by taxpayers like you.
A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:
PBS News HourJuly 11, 2023
6:25 p.m. (ET)
Amna Nawaz: Billions of dollars were funneled to school districts across the United States to help them make up for learning loss from the pandemic.
But new research shows that, even with that extra money, school districts are still struggling to close the gaps in reading, writing and math that grew during the pandemic.
Stephanie Sy has more on these findings and where we go from here.
Stephanie Sy: Amna, this research analyzed data for more than 6.5 million public school students in third through eighth grades, comparing their academic gains from 2022 to 2023 with pre-pandemic years.
The study authors estimate that most students would need, on average, an additional 4.5 months of math instruction and four months of reading instruction to catch up.
I'm joined now by Karyn Lewis, director of the Center for School and Student Progress and a lead researcher at NWEA, the organization that came out with this new study.
Karyn, thank you so much for joining the "NewsHour."
We know from previous, even recent research that public schools are having a tough time closing that learning gap that occurred during the pandemic. How does your study add to what we already know?
Karyn Lewis, Director and Lead Researcher, NWEA: I think what's new about what we have learned in this most recent release of data is that, up until this point, we had seen some positive signs that we were starting to have some progress towards recovery, albeit modest progress.
So it's disheartening and disappointing that, at the end of the '22-'23 school year, we actually have backslid slightly and the gaps between current achievement levels relative to pre-pandemic trends actually widened. And that's because students were making gains this year at below-average rates.
Stephanie Sy: One of the startling statistics in your analysis is you say the average eighth grader needs more than nine months to catch up in math. That's a whole academic year.
So what should schools be doing that they haven't been to make this happen?
Karyn Lewis: I don't think it's necessarily that schools need to be doing things they haven't been. They just need to be doing more of what they are doing.
What we're seeing here are levels of unfinished learning that will take many years to recoup. This isn't a strategy where we have one single silver bullet that's going to get us out of this mess. And it's going to be a matter of layering interventions that are evidence-based and being able to provide those on a longer time frame.
Stephanie Sy: What kind of interventions are we talking about? And have those interventions been affected by the staffing shortages at schools that we have been reporting on since the pandemic?
Karyn Lewis: The interventions all share in common that they're trying to add back in some of that instruction that was lost during the initial phase of the pandemic, when schools shut down.
So these are strategies like summer school, or double-dosing core instruction in reading and math. We also know that high-dosage tutoring is a popular intervention that's happening right now. And all of those strategies rely on humans to deliver them. So you're right that staffing shortages really impede our ability to deliver these at scale.
We also know that any one single intervention is not going to be enough to get kids where we want them to be. And it's a matter of layering these and coming up with a suite of resources to support kids.
Stephanie Sy: You know, reading through your policy recommendations, you do use this phrase high-dosage tutoring.
How do you scale that? I mean, are there any innovations or ideas for how to do that, given that so many students need this extra help?
Karyn Lewis: I think it's time to get really creative about how we're finding access to tutors.
And it's not just putting out a help wanted ad, but really getting creative and going and seeking out members of the community that may be under =looked in their ability to help support these efforts, so using high school students to connect with elementary school students, using college students to connect with high school students and so forth.
I think we need to think more broadly and more creatively about how to source those positions.
Stephanie Sy: You know, some are saying that the federal government, they're pointing out that the federal government put billions of dollars to help schools recover from the pandemic and that part of that focus was to get students back up to speed to pre-pandemic achievement.
Does some accountability lie with how school districts spent that money, in your view?
Karyn Lewis: In my view, it's too soon to really see those efforts pay off. We know schools had a really challenging year in '21- 22, and '22-'23 was still complete with challenges, in terms of staffing and chronic absentee levels.
It's not as if schools are doing the wrong things. They're just not doing enough of the right things. And I think we know need to have some empathy for what it's like on the ground. Districts are not set up to be nimble and on the turn of a dime be able to implement a high-dosage tutoring program to thousands of students. It just isn't the way schooling works.
I think what our data suggest is that schools are doing the right things, but just not enough of them. And it's going to need to extend for a longer time frame. And so it certainly is not the time to withdraw federal supports. If anything, it's time to double down and make sure that we are supporting schools, so that they can sustain and ramp up these efforts in the coming years.
Stephanie Sy: You know, I was looking at a report about how globally students around the world have fallen behind, and the U.S. is actually not as bad as other countries.
And one question I have is whether the goalposts have moved for everyone or need to move. Is it realistic at this point for educators and parents to expect that their children will catch up to the achievement that we were seeing pre-pandemic?
Karyn Lewis: That's a question that I get a lot. Why do we continue to compare current achievement levels to pre-pandemic trends? Should we just accept that this is our new normal?
I don't accept that this is our new normal. I hope others don't, because, if we do that, if we just shrug our shoulders and accept that kids are this much farther behind than they used to be, that's problematic for the average kid, but it's catastrophic for the kids that have been hardest hit, which are students in high-poverty areas, Black and Hispanic students, who are fully months and months behind where we would want them to be.
And that would only catch them up to pre-COVID levels of inequality. And I don't think we can just shrug our shoulders and accept that this is how things are.
Stephanie Sy: Can't give up on this.
Karyn Lewis, thank you so much for sharing these insights with us.
Karyn Lewis: Thank you for having me.
