Evidence on the large negative and heterogenous effects of the pandemic on student achievement

Ian Callen, Dan Goldhaber and Emily Morton

Chapter Chapter 16 in Handbook on Inequality and COVID-19, 2025, pp 254-277 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: There is now abundant evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on student learning. Such evidence is found in historically large declines in student standardized test scores, as well as other measures of academic achievement and school engagement. Moreover, the impacts vary significantly across student subgroups, exacerbating prepandemic achievement gaps and threatening educational and economic inequality. This chapter reviews the empirical evidence on the impacts of the pandemic on various measures of student achievement, the extent to which impacts varied across students, and what explains the heterogeneous effects. We conclude by offering speculative thoughts about the end of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding and what failure to address learning loss may imply for long-run economic inequality.

Keywords: Learning loss; Achievement; K-12 education policy; Growth; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035302758
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