Morgan Polikoff and William Hughes

It’s been over four years since schools closed to stop the spread of COVID-19 and by now there is no question that the pandemic has a long shadow over Wisconsin education.

Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam show Wisconsin students’ performance lags far behind historical peaks in the early to mid-2010s, and absenteeism data show about a 50% increase in chronic absenteeism since pre-COVID. Wisconsin also has cavernous, long-standing Black-white test score gaps, gaps that have not been narrowing.

There is a perhaps well-intentioned desire to move past the pandemic and its effects on children, but we still need urgency to get children back on track. And before this, there needs to be clarity about what the problems are — what effects COVID has had on Wisconsin’s schoolchildren, and how much work is needed to recover.