We Should Avoid Flattening The Curve In Education – Possible Scenarios For Learning Loss During The School Lockdowns

Social distancing has been a necessary strategy to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), leading most countries to close their school systems. But with 1.5 billion children out of school in 175 countries (as of April 10), there are more and more concerns about the longer-term effects on learning. The world was already in a learning crisis, and the ongoing emergency will put further strain on hard-won gains in learning. In our ongoing work simulating these effects, we propose to think about the effects that school closures will have on the “learning curve.” Doing this will help us focus on the poorest and worst-off students, and to design better mitigation strategies that are in the best interest of children.

Learning curves are typically drawn by the makers of national assessments (such as National Assessment of Educational Progress – NAEP) or international ones (such as Programme for International Student Assessment – PISA, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study – TIMSS, or Progress in International Reading Literacy Study – PIRLS). The average scores (represented by the top) of these curves are probably most famous, because averages are often used to rank countries………..………………