New study shows substantial learning loss during COVID drive by forced remote learning

Here is a link to a writeup of a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The chart below really illustrates the point:

But, it is notable that NONE of the states studied above saw students lose as much time in the classroom as did New Mexico students who lost the 6th-most classroom time in the nation.

The critical statistic is the 2019 Pass Rate and 2021 Pass Rate columns which show significant declines in EVERY SINGLE STATE studied. The only states that saw reasonably small declines were Wyoming and Florida, both of which kept kids in physical classrooms at a much higher level (above 90%) than other states.

According to the report:

Researchers estimated that “offering full in-person instruction rather than fully hybrid or virtual instruction reduces test score losses in math by 10.1 percentage points (on the base of 14.2 percentage points),” and that with English language arts, “the loss is reduced in fully in-person settings by 3.2 percentage points.”

We can only imagine the impact in New Mexico, which already ranks 50th in education and lost more classroom time than any of the studied states.