1 . Most natural experiments in school disruption come after isolated natural disasters. The covid-19 pandemic is leading to a simultaneous global experiment, however. In America, where schools have been significantly disrupted for the better part of a year, the first batches of reliable data are being gathered to assess how bad the damage has actually been. Sorting through them shows that sadly, America has not defied the gloomy predictions.
A recent analysis of standardised tests carried out by McKinsey, a consulting firm, found that pupils examined in the autumn had learned 33% less maths and 13% less reading than expected. For schools that are majority non-white, the learning losses were much steeper: pupils there had learned 41% less maths and 23% less reading.
In Washington, DC, 73% of white children in kindergarten and 45% of black children typically show adequate reading progress. When examined this year, white children showed a modest drop in adequate literacy to 67%, while black children experienced a much larger one—to 31%. The gaps are also showing up in coursework, not just exams.
Teachers in Los Angeles are reporting a stark increase in the number of failing grades—with the greatest increase in poor neighbourhoods. Researchers from Brown and Harvard universities examining data from Zearn, an online maths-teaching platform, found that pupils from high-income families are actually performing 12% better in their coursework than in January 2020. But for students from low-income families, scores fell by 17%.
The results suggest that the fears of worsening achievement gaps at the start of the pandemic were justified. There are enormous racial gaps in the kinds of instruction being received: 70% of black and Hispanic children are receiving fully remote education, compared with 50% of white pupils. Parents with the means to do so appear to be pulling their children out of public education altogether.
1. How did people estimate the damage?| A．By doing experiments. | B．By analyzing the gathered data. |
| C．By sorting through the students. | D．By making predictions. |
| A．White students learned 33% less reading than predicted. |
| B．Non-white students learned better than white students. |
| C．The reading ability of black children dropped more obviously. |
| D．The falling range was only revealed in examinations. |
| A．Race difference | B．Family income |
| C．Learning ability | D．Quality of assignment |
| A．Shutting schools has hit poor American children’s learning |
| B．American parents intend to pull their children out of public education. |
| C．The pandemic led to a global education experiment. |
| D．Americans are pessimistic about the gloomy results. |
