The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Achievement

By Chris Justin Lopez-Henriquez

Never in our lifetime did humanity envision that a world pandemic would bring about negative impacts on our educational system—and our society as a whole. Rooms, which once fluttered energetically with kids and knowledge, are now left empty and filled with dust. A pandemic has not only infiltrated our world, but our homes. COVID-19, a virus that refuses to cease, only keeps on evolving. Humanity, on the other hand, is now facing its most dangerous enemy in history again. We do not face other countries, nor each other, but we are asked to come together to fight this threat– a threat that only moves forward as we seek a cure. And in the meantime, schools and students are faced with difficult challenges in which both students and teachers are learning through the process. 

COVID-19, is an on-going virus that still manages to keep students and teachers on their toes. The transition from face-to-face teaching to virtual schooling has caused outrage among students, society, and our social-media platforms. “We are seeing the highest failure and ‘No Grade’ [NG] grades for courses than we have ever seen,” says Lori Frerk principal at Green Bay East High School. Going on to say that students who receive a “‘NG’ have not participated in classes,” which means that students who have not attended class or attended at “a low rate of less than 80%” are not earning credits towards graduation due to F’s and NGs. This brings concerns around East High School administration and staff in regards to how many students will need an alternative program to graduate when they are seniors. The school board, which debated whether to eliminate in-school teaching and adopt this new virtual school world or not, has made the decision to proceed with virtual learning, as the virus limits our ability to delegate and adapt to situations by risking our health. The numbers of students that are falling behind have doubled if not tripled the number of students, “we do not have the capacity in the district to support that number,” says Mrs. Frerk, leading to the fact so many students might not “ever earn their high school diploma,” due to lack of resources. 

Economic crises have “put pressure on public budgets in the past,” says an article by Andreas Schleicher –Director for the Directorate of Education and skills, as well as Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General– about the impact of COVID-19 on Education. The preliminary COVID-19 slide estimates suggest students in the fall of 2020 are highly prone to failure with roughly “70% of the learning gains in reading from the prior year,” also according to Andreas Schleicher, relative to a typical school year. Going on further where in mathematics students may show even smaller learning gains than in the previous year, “returning with less than 50% of the gains.”  In some countries, this has led to reductions in public funding for education. With the significant differences in the productivity of education systems, among all countries and US states, people, unfortunately, are likely to see the effect of a crisis on education funding to negatively affect the quality of education leading up to virtual learning, the safest of all options.

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