Posted on by Californiacontrarian

School Days


“Up in the mornin’ and out to school

The teacher is teachin’ the Golden Rule

American history and practical math

You study’ em hard and hopin’ to pass”

So sang Chuck Berry in his 1957 pop song, School Days …

but not so these days, as school days are not the same in 2020.

In 2020 with the no in-person school model and the various hybrid models, how much are kids losing?  Are they actually losing anything?  

Does it matter?

McKinsey & Co. estimate that students in the US who do not receive full-time, in-person instruction until 2021 will lose about seven months of learning. But that loss won’t be equal across all groups. With that level of disruption, expect that white students, on average, will lose about six months of learning, Hispanic students about nine months, and Black students up to ten months of learning. Low income students may fall behind by more than a year. There are a range of factors, e.g. wi-fi accessibility, high-speed internet, availability of adult to help, etc., many of which end up challenging students of color and low-income students more than their white, wealthier peers.

Are school kids losing anything over the long term because of not going back to school?

From Yahoo/Finance, Oct. 20,2020

According to a new report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), there is a financial trade-off to school closures: thousands of dollars of lost earnings to children currently in primary and secondary school.

By the beginning of October those closures have cost students between $43,000 and $57,000 in their future earnings, depending on their grade. That’s between 4% and 5% of their future estimated earnings. Younger students, the report says, lose more than their older classmates. And as schools stay closed around the country, the costs continue to accumulate.

For each month that schools continue to remain closed, students lose an additional $12,000 to $15,000 from their future earnings, the Penn Wharton model calculates.

If they stay closed through the 2020-2021 school year, children would lose nearly $200,000, taking off close to 15% of their projected future lifetime earnings.

“School Days” … Horrors! 

In 2020, Chuck Berry wouldn’t recognize the lyrics to his own song!

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