美国国家公共电台 NPR--How much learning did students miss during the pandemic? Researchers have an answer

How much learning did students miss during the pandemic? Researchers have an answer

Transcript¹

New research paints the clearest picture yet of just how much learning students missed during the pandemic, and what it may take to help children in the hardest hit districts to make up ground.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

Historic in magnitude. That's how new research describes just how much learning students missed during the pandemic.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The researchers reviewed a mountain of data covering nearly 8,000 school districts to create the clearest picture yet of which students were hit hardest and why.

MART?NEZ: NPR's Cory Turner joins us now. Cory, how much learning do researchers think students have missed out on?

CORY TURNER, BYLINE²: Yeah. The average student, A, in grades third through eighth missed half a year of math. And in reading, they missed a quarter of a year. And that's according to researchers at Harvard's Center for Education Policy Research and Stanford's Educational Opportunity Project. Now, not surprisingly, wealth and poverty played a big role here. By last year, a student in the poorest 10% of districts had missed twice as much math learning as her peers in the richest districts. Researchers say students of color were also more likely to be hit hard. And, obviously, these differences come on top of already large opportunity gaps between our most and our least privileged students.

MART?NEZ: Yeah. And what about schools being remote for long periods of time? I mean, what effect did that have?

TURNER: Yeah, a big one. I put that question to Tom Kane. He's one of the researchers and a professor at Harvard.

TOM KANE: There's no question. In places where schools were remote or hybrid³ longer, students lost more ground. And that was particularly true in high-poverty districts.

TURNER: So, for example, A, in districts where schools were remote for nearly all of the 2020-21 school year, students missed nearly twice as much math as districts that had stayed largely in-person. But this is key here. School closures were only part of the story. The researchers found other community-level factors beyond school that also affected⁴ how much kids did or didn't learn.

MART?NEZ: Other factors. What kind of other factors?

TURNER: Well, so students missed more learning in places with higher COVID death rates and where adults were more likely to say they were feeling depressed⁵ or anxious about the pandemic. On the other hand, students missed less learning in places where people were more likely to vote or respond to the U.S. Census⁶. In their brief, the researchers explained that one by saying, living in a community where more people trust the government appears to have been an asset to children during the pandemic.

They also found that social activities, like going out to dinner or meeting a friend in public, were intertwined with kids' learning. Tom Kane told me, basically, the places where life was more disrupted saw bigger losses. And finally, A, they looked at earlier test score drops before the pandemic. You know, when a single district may have been hit by a local flu outbreak or maybe too many snow days, they wanted to see if kids naturally made up that ground over time. Here's Sean Reardon. He's another one of the researchers on the project and a professor of education and sociology at Stanford.

SEAN REARDON: And what was, I think, striking and surprising and a little sobering was that when there's a big decline in one year, those cohorts don't seem to catch up for those three or four years that we can follow them into the future.

TURNER: So Reardon warns, parents and public officials shouldn't just assume that schools can make up for all that lost ground because history shows in those test scores, without a concerted effort, much of it will just stay lost.

MART?NEZ: All right. NPR's Cory Turner. Cory, thanks.

TURNER: You're welcome, A.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

4 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

5 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

6 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。