Covid-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime

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Public Sector Practice
COVID-19 and student 
learning in the United 
States: The hurt could 
last a lifetime 
New evidence shows that the shutdowns caused by COVID-19
could exacerbate existing achievement gaps. 
June 2020
© Robin Gentry / EyeEm/Getty Images
by Emma Dorn, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg

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The US education system 
was not built to deal 
with extended shutdowns like those imposed by 
the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers, administrators, 
and parents have worked hard to keep learning 
alive; nevertheless, these efforts are not likely to 
provide the quality of education that’s delivered in 
the classroom. 
Even more troubling is the context: the persistent 
achievement disparities across income levels and 
between white students and students of black and 
Hispanic heritage. School shutdowns could not only 
cause disproportionate learning losses for these 
students—compounding existing gaps—but also 
lead more of them to drop out. This could have long-
term effects on these children’s long-term economic 
well-being and on the US economy as a whole. 
Despite the enormous attention devoted to the 
achievement gap, it has remained a stubborn 
feature of the US education system. In 2009, we 
estimated that the gap between white students 
and black and Hispanic ones deprived the US 
economy of $310 billion to $525 billion a year in 
productivity, equivalent to 2 to 4 percent of GDP.
1 
The achievement gap between high- and low-
income students was even larger, at $400 billion 
to $670 billion, 3 to 5 percent of GDP. Although we 
calculate these two gaps separately, we recognize 
that black and Hispanic students are also more 
likely to live in poverty. Yet poverty alone cannot 
account for the gaps in educational performance.
2
Together, they were the equivalent of a permanent 
economic recession. 
Unfortunately, the past decade has seen little 
progress in narrowing these disparities. The average 
black or Hispanic student remains roughly two years 
behind the average white one, and low-income 
students continue to be underrepresented among 
top performers.
3
We estimate that if the black 
and Hispanic student-achievement gap had been 
closed in 2009, today’s US GDP would have been 
$426 billion to $705 billion higher.
4
If the income-
achievement gap had been closed, we estimate 
that US GDP would have been $332 billion to $550 
billion higher (Exhibit 1). 
These estimates were made before schools closed 
and the transition to remote learning began, 
sometimes chaotically. In this article, we explore the 
possible long-term damage of COVID-19–related 
school closures on low-income, black, and Hispanic 
Americans, and on the US economy.