COVID-19 school closures will likely impact student academic achievement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r1 · q1
Currency · newest study 2020 · checked against its sources 2026-10-09 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q1 i? The brief asserts that COVID-19 school closures will likely have an impact on student academic achievement. → Megan Kuhfeld 2020

Evidence¶

Megan Kuhfeld 2020¶

Megan Kuhfeld, Beth Tarasawa. (2020). The COVID-19 slide: What summer learning loss can tell us about the potential impact of school closures on student academic achievement. NWEA Research brief. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/the-covid-19-slide-what-summer-learning-loss-can-tell-us-about-the-potential-impact-of-school-closures-on-student-academic-achievement/

q1 · i? · review · r1

The brief's own description states the central assertion without reporting data in the supplied text: "COVID-19 school closures will likely impact student academic achievement." No effect size or supporting statistic is printed in the text provided.

"COVID-19 school closures will likely impact student academic achievement."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• COVID-19 school closures in Pennsylvania are likely to have caused substantial learning losses, with harms concentrated in populations also disproportionately harmed by the disease — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• NWEA's 2024 technical brief examines pandemic impacts on science achievement and gains from 2019 through 2024, continuing research on COVID-19 school-closure effects on learning — related
• Students with disabilities may have experienced disproportionate academic impacts from COVID-19, according to NWEA research — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• COVID-19 school closures highlighted the need to understand promising remote learning strategies when no classroom alternatives exist — related
• During COVID-19 school disruptions, schools can take steps to ensure students continue to progress academically whether at home or at school — related
• Schools reported that about 40 percent of their students experienced considerable or major academic losses since March 2020 — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Projected COVID-19 learning loss was not universal, with the top third of students potentially making gains in reading — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Summer learning loss patterns are used to project the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures on student academic achievement — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The forum addressed modeling of school openings, closings, and learning loss during COVID-19 — related
• Education leaders had little data on the impacts of school closures on learning at the time of the COVID-19 spring 2020 closures — related
• Existing research on missing school from summer breaks, weather closures, and absenteeism can inform projections of pandemic learning loss — related
• Research on seasonal learning and summer learning loss offers insights into the potential achievement impacts of COVID-19 school closures — related
• New baseline data are needed to support instructional planning for individual students and student groups after disrupted schooling — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Learning loss varied considerably by school, with some schools seeing slides of 10 percentile points or more and others recording no losses or small gains — related
• Educators and evaluators faced open questions about how to measure student performance after COVID disruptions — related
• Remote learning implemented during the spring 2020 closures achieved effects similar to no teaching at all during summer vacation — related