United States: The Size and Variation of the Pandemic Learning Losses

Abstract

Recent international and national assessments point to the substantial learning losses that resulted from school disruptions during the pandemic. The United States, which entered the pandemic with achievement near the OECD average, had rather average pandemic learning losses and came out of the pandemic at roughly the same international ranking as before the pandemic. The learning losses from the pandemic foretell substantial economic costs related to the lower skills of those in the COVID-19 cohort. At the same time, there was substantial heterogeneity in achievement losses across states and across individuals, leading to disproportionate economic impacts on some individuals and states. Unlike the other economic costs of the pandemic, those from learning losses are future costs that are yet to accrue and that can be ameliorated by public action—but the time for feasibly addressing them is quickly running out.