INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

While learning loss is an emerging concern as students return to school, IPR social psychologist Mesmin Destin said he would caution against a singular narrative of “learning loss” among underserved students.  

“Instead, a broader lens is needed to acknowledge the longstanding ways in which educational systems have taken a narrow approach to learning and human development,” he said.

Two possible directions school leaders can take include leveraging students’ background-specific strengths and developing holistic systems of support. 

Students from marginalized backgrounds constantly hear negative messages about their identities, and those messages can lead them to believe that their backgrounds are barriers. However, Destin’s research shows that when students from low-income backgrounds learn about their adversities and backgrounds as assets to their school and community, their psychological wellbeing and ability to persist through academic difficulty increases. Following a year of uncertainty and stress from the pandemic, this research has positive implications aimed at supporting academic achievement.

Destin’s research also demonstrates how deep engagement with social-contextual forces around a student—including peers, parents, teachers, and educational institutions—can support a student’s understanding of their identity and their academic outcomes, which helps reduce the socioeconomic disparities in education. 

“As stakeholders seek to reinvest in students, they should expand their imagination beyond the restoration of a system that carries so many embedded limitations and inequities,” Destin said.

“High-dosage” tutoring might be one way forward.

A recently released study by IPR economist Jonathan Guryan in conjunction with the University of Chicago Education Lab demonstrates that individualized, intensive—or “high-dosage”—tutoring can double or triple the amount of math high school students learn each year. It also can work to increase student grades and reduce the number of failed classes in math and other courses.

The study is especially exciting as it shows a way to help high school students who are typically written off as being too old for effective interventions and who cite failing math as their biggest reason for why they drop out.

The researchers evaluated the impact of offering more than 2,600 Chicago Public School ninth and tenth graders with daily math instruction for 45–50-minutes, with one tutor coaching two students at the same time. The intervention, which cost $3,500 to $4,300 per pupil per year, was developed by the Saga Education, a nonprofit organization at a benefit-cost ratio comparable to that of many successful early-childhood programs. 

Additionally the study finds: Students’ math test scores, GPAs, and graduation rates continued to improve. Students also learned as much as an extra two and a half years of math in one academic year—or the equivalent of closing up 50% of the black-white test score gap in one school year.

“This rigorous study shows that high-dosage tutoring can be impactful and cost-effective at scale,” Guryan said.

IPR economist Ofer Malamud expects that school closures and the shift to remote learning will lead to lower learning gains, on average, and higher inequality in academic achievement.

Learning will likely be reduced because remote learning often means less effective instructional time. Inequality will probably be exacerbated by the differences in what children have at home—internet speed, computers, and most importantly, whether parents are able to supervise and help their children. Being socially cut off from others will also affect children’s nonacademic lives.

Another effect of the pandemic, Malamud points out, is that it has interrupted the collection of educational data, such as test scores. The fact that educational data are gathered relatively infrequently, in contrast to many household surveys that gather information continually, means that we will need to wait to understand what is happening.

An expert who has studied remote learning issues internationally, Ofer Malamud started a project to examine how parent searches for online educational materials (such as Khan Academy) changed with the school closures last spring.

“My preliminary results based on Google Trends data showed that searches for online educational materials rose dramatically with school closures,” he reported, “and that these increases were substantially larger in areas with more educated and higher-income households, potentially reinforcing the idea that remote schooling would exacerbate inequality.”

Other researchers published nearly identical results before Malamud completed his study. While being “scooped” is an unfortunate part of the publication process, Malamud is happy to see that these findings have been confirmed and disseminated.

“Nevertheless, I still think that that we need to learn more about the effect of school closures on learning gains during the pandemic, and the related effect on the inequality of academic achievement,” he said.

When the pandemic struck, many U.S. students, be they K–12 or college-aged, were transformed into online learners overnight. Reports since have been decidedly mixed and many focus on the negative aspects and learning gaps. Beyond the downsides though, IPR economist David Figlio, who is dean of Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy, says online learning can offer some silver linings. 

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of the pandemic pivot to online learning has been having the technology, he says. Suppose we had experienced the pandemic 10 years ago, when the technology was not as stable or as widespread as it is now.

“COVID makes it clear that as horrible and disruptive we think this is, that if it had happened a decade ago, it would have been so much worse,” Figlio said.

But on the flip side, many students are struggling in all-virtual, and even hybrid, models. Having published one of the first randomized experiments to look at how students fare in an online versus an in-person class in 2013, Figlio finds overall that college students do slightly worse in online courses, with academically struggling, male, and Latino students dropping the most. Since then, studies in a variety of other higher education settings have demonstrated similar findings.

Though these studies were conducted on college students and in pre-pandemic times, some of the lessons learned from these and others do speak to the future of online education in a post-pandemic K–12 and higher education world.

First, Figlio points to the wider access that online education provides. He cites recent studies, like this one, depicting how an online science master’s program increased the number of graduates overall by responding to unmet demand.

Second, institutions will need to boost the quality of their online offerings. The existing literature in higher education indicates that students often learn less in online classes, and employers tend to regard online degrees from for-profit institutions as less desirable.

Third, as numbers of online courses and degrees increase, this may put pressure on “brick-and-mortar” schools to improve the quality of their online offerings. Institutions could take online offerings as an opportunity to expand, especially for those with sterling reputations.

Fourth, educators will have to work to make online courses as good as they can be for as many as students as possible. Importantly, Figlio notes that educators have their work cut out to avoid creating a “two-tier” system that disadvantages academically and financially struggling students versus their more well-off peers.

Going forward, Figlio offers that certain types of pedagogical instruction and classes could actually benefit from online instruction and make it easier, in some cases, for instructors to differentiate. He estimates that even at institutions that will return to nearly entirely in-person instruction, perhaps 5–20% of classes might even be better if taught virtually following the pandemic. Still, much work remains.

“Quality online education just doesn’t naturally happen,” Figlio said. “You have to put the careful thought and resources behind it.”

As revenues plummet in some states, policymakers will need to take hard decisions over possible spending cuts. Cuts to K–12 school spending are a typical target, especially since some long-standing and influential research maintains no connection between school spending and student outcomes. But research by IPR economist Kirabo Jackson reveals strong ties between spending and student results.  

Jackson tracked large spending increases that resulted from court cases in 28 states between 1971 and 2010, with his co-authors American University’s Claudia Persico (PhD 2016), a former IPR graduate research assistant, and Rucker Johnson of the University of California, Berkeley.

They show that in places where spending per student rose 10% across all 12 years of schooling, those students young enough to have experienced these increases over their 12 years in school were more likely to graduate from high school and had about 7% higher wages as adults. They were also less likely to be poor as adults. The results were more dramatic for low-income students, who, on average, spent about six more months in school and earned around 13% more at age 40.

How did increased spending lead to these improvements in student outcomes? Jackson and his colleagues discover that the increases in school spending were associated with lower student-to-teacher ratios, longer school years, and increased teacher salaries, which might help to attract and retain more qualified instructors.

While many K–12 schools are hitting the pause button on standardized testing and learning assessments, IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach argues that it would be beneficial to keep assessing student learning during the pandemic. 

Her research shows that standardized tests and other forms of data can be important diagnostic tools to understand how schools and students are performing.

“Continuing testing would help us understand the extent to which the pandemic influenced learning,” she said, “and will empower schools, parents, and communities with helpful information as they work to ensure their students learn and grow.”

IPR economist Hannes Schwandt argues that learning losses have undeniably taken place during the pandemic, and they will not affect children equally. Certain age groups may have suffered greater learning losses than others and some students have had more support from parents than their peers while they’ve learned online.

“The really important inequality here is that typically less advantaged families have a much harder time home schooling or doing 'Zoom school' and getting their children through the pandemic with as much schooling as possible,” he said.

These learning disruptions will be important to watch, especially if they are linked to traumatic experiences, because they could lead to future inequality in children’s long-term outcomes.

He says one issue scholars should keep an eye on when children return to the classroom is mental health. Schwandt argues that the psychological scars children may have from the pandemic are more important than learning losses because they could turn into chronic issues with severe long-term effects.

“Research shows that children’s mental health problems have really high long-term costs and are typically higher than physical health issues,” Schwandt explained.

IPR political scientist James Druckman has been tracking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s attitudes and beliefs since March 2020 as a leader of the 50-State Covid-19 Project. Run by researchers at Northwestern, Harvard, Rutgers, and Northeastern universities, the project aims to help policymakers make more informed decisions.  

Of the many findings in the 44 reports produced so far, Druckman points to one in particular when considering school reopenings.

“I think the most relevant thing from our work is the level of clinical depression among youth,” he said, which is six to seven times beyond what it is in ‘normal’ pre-COVID times.

The November 2020 report surveyed over 8,900 young adults, aged 18–24, across the U.S. Just over half of them stated their school or college had closed. Nearly half of those surveyed described having at least moderate symptoms of depression, and over a third reported occasional thoughts that they might be better off dead, or had thoughts of harming themselves—a tenfold increase in the rate prior to the pandemic.

“I think it will be crucial to monitor the mental health of students and prioritize a slow return to pre-COVID activities,” Druckman said.

The pandemic has been especially hard on the mental health of young people, as they face unprecedented uncertainty, experience elevated stress, and show symptoms of depression, according to an American Psychological Association survey. IPR developmental psychologist Emma Adam, who led the design and collection of data on teenagers for the report and also gathered information on the pandemic’s impacts on teens through her ongoing longitudinal study, the Biology, Identity and Opportunity (BIO) study.  These sources show that there have been many sources of adolescent stress throughout the pandemic, but economic strain and health issues within families are among the most impactful stressors.

She said the stress of online learning pales in comparison to stress because of a family illness or job loss, particularly for low-income students. Adam predicts that economic relief from the recent stimulus bill will likely improve stress levels and wellbeing for students whose families have struggled financially.

And while adolescents who have been learning at home deal with loneliness, they have had less stress related to school and interactions with their peers. Adolescents have also had time to sleep more, which helps with stress regulation. 

“On returning to schools, we expect loneliness to decrease, which is a positive, but social anxiety and tiredness may increase again, as students return to their regular social interactions and schedules,” Adam explained.

IPR economist Hannes Schwandt argues that learning losses have undeniably taken place during the pandemic, and they will not affect children equally. Certain age groups may have suffered greater learning losses than others and some students have had more support from parents than their peers while they’ve learned online.

“The really important inequality here is that typically less advantaged families have a much harder time home schooling or doing Zoom school and getting their children through the pandemic with as much schooling as possible,” he said.

These learning disruptions will be important to watch, especially if they are linked to traumatic experiences, because they could lead to future inequality in children’s long-term outcomes.

He says one issue scholars should keep an eye on when children return to the classroom is mental health. Schwandt argues that the psychological scars children may have from the pandemic are more important than learning losses because they could turn into chronic issues with severe long-term effects.

“Research shows that children’s mental health problems have really high long-term costs and are typically higher than physical health issues,” Schwandt explained.

During the pandemic, many standardized tests have been removed or paused, a regular source of stress for students. IPR developmental psychologist Emma Adam’s research shows that stress hormones increase on the days standardized tests are given and that very high or low levels of stress hormones are associated with lower test performance. She argues that this is not the time to assess students’ knowledge through testing with all the existing stress related to the pandemic.

“Now is the time to take care of students, emotionally, so that they can learn better in the future as the country begins to emerge from the extremely stressful events, both health and political, of the last year,” Adam said.

After the pandemic abruptly stopped in-person learning and isolated many children from their peers and teachers, IPR developmental psychologist Terri Sabol notes this may have caused trauma for young students who are still developing. Based on her work evaluating how early childhood education and social interactions impact children, Sabol proposes that schools focus on building positive relationships between students and teachers, as well as among students.

“It’s less about ‘learning loss’ and more about ‘relationship loss,’” Sabol said. “Relationship building helps children feel safe. If you don’t feel safe and secure, it is hard to advance academically.”

In her research, she finds that preschool students experience developmental gains when they have positive engagements with teachers and peers. For example, after observing a student’s individual engagement with teachers, Sabol and her colleagues found that positive engagements improved literacy skills. With peers, students showed improved language and self-regulatory skills. She also points to research that demonstrates that close teacher-child relationships can make up for the negative effects of a child’s earlier experiences.

Last, Sabol recommends considering a child’s perspective of the pandemic and asking them about their experiences. This may help teachers build back trust in the classroom and reestablish school as a place where young children can take learning risks and construct knowledge. 

According to economist and IPR associate Joseph Ferrie, none. The Spanish influenza may be the best comparison to our current COVID-19 pandemic, but it is not a very relevant one. Although schools were closed during the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918–19, they were closed for far shorter periods than the multiple months of today’s pandemic. He studied the impact of the 1918 flu on children who were in utero at the time by examining census records that record their lives decades later. He found they had less education, were more likely to be disabled, and had lower incomes as adults.

Ferrie notes that although there is some recent research on the effects of school closings during the 1918 flu pandemic, it indicates that there were public health benefits for the community. However, there is no evidence that school closures in the 1918-19 school year during the pandemic harmed school attendance the following year—the only available measure for academic outcomes—and no evidence that children who missed school suffered economic difficulties as adults.

“But sometimes it's just as important to note the lack of similarity with historical circumstances that we're going to try and draw conclusions from as it is to try and find those similarities,” he said.

Not only were the schools shut for much shorter time, but today’s schools are very different, and we know that children who benefit more from in-school instruction and small group learning are clearly being shortchanged when schools are closed. Perhaps most significantly, Ferrie points out, children are missing out on being with others for months at a time, an important part of their development and socialization, which was not the case in 1918.

“People try and make these casual connections between historical circumstances and contemporary realities,” he said, “and I think in this case it’s quite inappropriate.”

“For Black and Brown children living in poverty, the school building is a portal for crucial assistance, where students, their families, and members of the broader community receive a variety of resources from free meals to flu shots,” IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah and her colleagues wrote in a recent op-ed.

She explains that schools play a crucial role in filling in holes in the social safety net. Schools provide students experiencing homelessness access to social workers and healthcare and gives those who are hungry access to nutritional food. “Schools play important roles beyond educating our children: They house them, feed them and accommodate their unique needs,” Nuamah explained.

She notes that the closure of schools has revealed the many roles that schools, particularly in the lives of our most disinvested minority communities. Responses to the pandemic should consider how vital schools are in these neighborhoods.

According to economist and IPR associate Joseph Ferrie, none. The Spanish influenza may be the best comparison to our current COVID-19 pandemic, but it is not a very relevant one. Although schools were closed during the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918–19, they were closed for far shorter periods than the multiple months of today’s pandemic. He studied the impact of the 1918 flu on children who were in utero at the time by examining census records that record their lives decades later. He found they had less education, were more likely to be disabled, and had lower incomes as adults.

Ferrie notes that although there is some recent research on the effects of school closings during the 1918 flu pandemic, it indicates that there were public health benefits for the community. However, there is no evidence that school closures in the 1918-19 school year during the pandemic harmed school attendance the following year—the only available measure for academic outcomes—and no evidence that children who missed school suffered economic difficulties as adults.

“But sometimes it's just as important to note the lack of similarity with historical circumstances that we're going to try and draw conclusions from as it is to try and find those similarities,” he said.

Not only were the schools shut for much shorter time, but today’s schools are very different, and we know that children who benefit more from in-school instruction and small group learning are clearly being shortchanged when schools are closed. Perhaps most significantly, Ferrie points out, children are missing out on being with others for months at a time, an important part of their development and socialization, which was not the case in 1918.

“People try and make these casual connections between historical circumstances and contemporary realities,” he said, “and I think in this case it’s quite inappropriate.”

IPR education sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa studies how disciplinary approaches shape the experiences of students and says teachers are the vehicle for school discipline in many ways. She hopes the time away from many physical classrooms will give administrators a chance to reset and reconsider discipline practices that are most equitable.

Ispa-Landa’s research suggests teachers need concrete and specific guidance on what racially equitable discipline looks like in the classroom. Also, teachers need a safe environment where they can ask questions and receive feedback as they begin to implement them. Ispa-Landa says racial gaps in discipline are much more about schools than students and for discipline to change it comes down to the treatment of teachers and students and the resources available to them.

“The more principals and superintendents devote resources to that now the better it [school discipline] will be,” she said, when teachers and students do go back to in-person learning.

IPR education sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa believes many students will return to physical classrooms with a lot grief from the pandemic, and schools should be prepared to support them with additional social workers.

These emotions could play out through acting up in the classroom, and she argues that teachers need effective communication systems that allow them to signal that a student needs additional care and support. Otherwise, she warns, many students may face disciplinary action when what is really needed is quite different.  

“If a teacher could flag that a student is showing a challenging behavior, but not have that dealt with through the discipline system but dealt with through social workers, that would be very effective,” she said.

When the pandemic struck, many U.S. students, be they K–12 or college-aged, were transformed into online learners overnight. Reports since have been decidedly mixed and many focus on the negative aspects and learning gaps. Beyond the downsides though, IPR economist David Figlio, who is dean of Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy, says online learning can offer some silver linings. 

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of the pandemic pivot to online learning has been having the technology, he says. Suppose we had experienced the pandemic 10 years ago, when the technology was not as stable or as widespread as it is now.

“COVID makes it clear that as horrible and disruptive we think this is, that if it had happened a decade ago, it would have been so much worse,” Figlio said.

But on the flip side, many students are struggling in all-virtual, and even hybrid, models. Having published one of the first randomized experiments to look at how students fare in an online versus an in-person class in 2013, Figlio finds overall that college students do slightly worse in online courses, with academically struggling, male, and Latino students dropping the most. Since then, studies in a variety of other higher education settings have demonstrated similar findings.

Though these studies were conducted on college students and in pre-pandemic times, some of the lessons learned from these and others do speak to the future of online education in a post-pandemic K–12 and higher education world.

First, Figlio points to the wider access that online education provides. He cites recent studies, like this one, depicting how an online science master’s program increased the number of graduates overall by responding to unmet demand.

Second, institutions will need to boost the quality of their online offerings. The existing literature in higher education indicates that students often learn less in online classes, and employers tend to regard online degrees from for-profit institutions as less desirable.

Third, as numbers of online courses and degrees increase, this may put pressure on “brick-and-mortar” schools to improve the quality of their online offerings. Institutions could take online offerings as an opportunity to expand, especially for those with sterling reputations.

Fourth, educators will have to work to make online courses as good as they can be for as many as students as possible. Importantly, Figlio notes that educators have their work cut out to avoid creating a “two-tier” system that disadvantages academically and financially struggling students versus their more well-off peers.

Going forward, Figlio offers that certain types of pedagogical instruction and classes could actually benefit from online instruction and make it easier, in some cases, for instructors to differentiate. He estimates that even at institutions that will return to nearly entirely in-person instruction, perhaps 5–20% of classes might even be better if taught virtually following the pandemic. Still, much work remains.

“Quality online education just doesn’t naturally happen,” Figlio said. “You have to put the careful thought and resources behind it.”