The Problem: The Impact of Covid-Related School Closures on American K-12 Students

The Scale of the Problem: 55.3 million students are affected, of which 11.8 million are low-income, 8.3 million are Black, and 14.3 million are Hispanic

Specifically:

Previous attempts at virtual education in America have not looked promising. [One study] found significantly reduced test scores in almost all subjects, and a ten-percentage-point drop in the chance of graduating from high school.- Disrupted schooling will deepen inequality for American students/The Economist August 29, 2020

“The impact of missed education could be lasting. “If a child is not reading at grade level by the third grade, they are four times less likely to graduate high school,” says Christakis. “And low-income children are six times less likely.” - Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, quoted in The New Scientist September 2, 2020    

“Achievement gaps will become achievement chasms,” warns Robin Lake, director of the Centre on Reinventing Public Education, a research group. Analysts at McKinsey, a consultancy, reckon that the typical American pupil would suffer 6.8 months of learning loss if in-person instruction does not resume until January 2021 (which looks plausible)…The true scale of the educational fallout will be unknown for years, because it manifests itself in future decisions like dropping out of high school or university” - Disrupted schooling will deepen inequality for American students/The Economist August 29, 2020 

“Learning loss will probably be greatest among low-income, black, and Hispanic students…Data from Curriculum Associates [suggest] that only 60 percent of low-income students are regularly logging into online instruction; 90 percent of high-income students do.” - COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime by Emma Dorn, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg/McKinsey & Company June 1, 2020 

What to Do:

  • Scale up after-school and summer tutoring programs.

  • Expand summer school programs.

  • Subsidize neighborhood “learning pods” for children of low-income parents.

  • Offer subsidized summer camp programs that include reading/math instruction

How much would this cost?

Let’s say 20 million school-age children will require, on average, 120 hours of small-group instruction or tutoring over a period of two years. Assuming an average expense per child of $50 per hour, the total budget for this post-pandemic education recovery program would be $120 billion, or $60 billion a year*. That includes instructor/tutor pay, training, curriculum development, materials and administrative costs. Yeah, it’s a lot - but the alternative - a lost generation - would be much worse.

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* During the 2017-18 school year, it cost $720 billion to run the nation’s public schools. On average, 47% of K-12 revenues come from state funds and another 45% from local governments, with just 8%  coming from the federal government. So the post-pandemic education recovery program would entail an 8.3% K-12 funding bump for two years. Perhaps Congress could pass a temporary tax increase to fund multiple national post-pandemic recovery programs, which would include the additional K-12 money.