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.
Read more at Axios.
{Matzav.com}
