Harvard Study: NJ Among the States with the Most School Closures and Learning Loss. What Will Gov. Murphy Do About It?

While the NJEA wants to claim that learning loss did not really occur, a new study by Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research sheds some much-needed light on the severity of learning loss due to pandemic-related school closures.  While the authors passed no judgments on whether a state’s COVID policies were justified, their conclusions were unequivocal: school closures during 2020-21 had “profound consequences” for student achievement.  In particular:

“In districts that went remote, achievement growth was lower for all subgroups, but especially for students attending high-poverty schools.  In areas that remained in person … there was no widening of gaps between high and low-poverty schools in math (and less widening in reading).”

As seen in the chart below, New Jersey ranked among states with the most weeks of remote learning, with high-poverty schools having the most (25 weeks).

“If the achievement losses become permanent, there will be major implications for future earnings, racial equality, and income inequality, especially in states where remote instruction was common.”