So now we know: Pandemic-related restrictions were devastating to the project of educating our kids. The Education Department dropped the news last week that America’s experiment with remote learning has reduced young children’s standardized test scores to levels not seen in two decades. Although performance fell in every demographic group, the losses were greatest among minorities and the poor.
The announcement has been greeted with a great and astonished ringing of hands, but no one should be surprised. Parents who opposed school closings knew what was coming. In her thoughtful new book “The Stolen Year,” Anya Kamenetz of NPR puts the point this way: “The danger that children would be harmed by prolonged school closures in 2020 was clear from the beginning.”
Exactly. Harm not only to learning but to social development and mental health. But as the rationale for the shutdown evolved from “two weeks to slow the spread” to a series of unreachable goals, those of us who raised questions about this strategy — including by pointing out that the worst-off children would suffer most — found our email inboxes inundated with angry missives from readers who accused us of ignoring the science.
