Massive learning setbacks show COVID’s sweeping toll on kids

UNDATED (AP)- The COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered classrooms set back learning in some U.S. school systems by more than a year, with children in high-poverty areas affected the most, according to a district-by-district analysis of test scores shared exclusively with The Associated Press. In the most comprehensive look yet at how much American schoolchildren have been put behind, the analysis found the average student lost half a school year of learning in math, and more than a quarter of a school year in reading. Online learning played a role, but students lost significant ground even where they returned quickly to schoolhouses.