The high cost of missed school – By Erica Pandey (Axios) / Feb 7 2021
The pandemic’s disruption of in-person school is causing headaches for students, parents and teachers. But it’ll also trigger long-term economic consequences to the tune of trillions of dollars.
The big picture: The U.S. economy could take a $14 trillion to $28 trillion blow in the long run due to coronavirus-induced learning loss, according to economists’ projections. And the longer the pandemic keeps kids out of classrooms, the higher that number will climb.
“Nobody’s paying attention to this absolutely stunningly large economic cost that just keeps piling up,” says Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist and one of the architects of an OECD analysis of the economic impact of COVID-19 learning loss.
On average, American students from kindergarten to fifth grade have missed out on 20% of the reading and 33% of the math skills they would have learned in normal times, according to a McKinsey report that analyzed diagnostic test scores across the country.
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