Back to School: Learning loss

Explain It to Me

Vox Media Podcast Network

Education, Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt and Dara are joined by Vox's German Lopez for a conversation about student learning loss. They focus on the policy decisions that led to school shutdowns during the pandemic, the consequences for different demographics, and alternative solutions for future crises. In this week’s white, paper the concept of associating a monetary value with life is explored through re-enlistment bonuses paid out by the military. Resources: “COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning” by Emma Dorn, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg (McKinsey & Company; July 27, 2021) “Learning Loss and Educational Inequalities in Europe: Mapping the Potential Consequences of the COVID-19 Crisis” by Zsuzsa Blaskó, Patricia da Costa, and Sylke V. Schnepf (Institute of Labor Economics; April 2021) “Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Per Engzell, Arun Frey, and Mark D. Verhagen (PNAS; April 27, 2021) “Is Summer Learning Loss Real?” by Paul T. von Hippel (Education Next; June 4, 2019) White Paper: “The Heterogeneous Value of a Statistical Life: Evidence from U.S. Army Reenlistment Decisions” by Kyle Greenberg, et al. (NBER; July 2021) Hosts: Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias), Slowboring.com Dara Lind (@DLind), Immigration Reporter, ProPublica German Lopez (@germanrlopez), Senior Correspondent, Vox Credits: Ness Smith-Savedoff, Producer & Engineer Erikk Geannikis, Producer, Talk Podcasts As the Biden administration gears up, we'll help you understand this unprecedented burst of policymaking. Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weeds-newsletter. The Weeds is a Vox Media Podcast Network production. Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a contribution to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts About Vox Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Follow Us: Vox.com Facebook group: The Weeds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome to another episode of the Meets on the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:17.2	I'm Matthew E. Glacias here today with Hermann Lopez, ProPublica's Dara Lent.
0:22.6	Education August continues.
0:25.2	We are going to talk this week about learning loss during the pandemic, what we know about
0:31.4	it, some of the controversies about it.
0:33.9	There's a turn of phrase that I don't know if everybody is familiar with, but it sort
0:38.9	of originates from a totally separate conversation, which is that researchers used to argue about
0:46.6	summer vacation and what happens there.
0:50.2	There was a theory which my read of the evidence is this theory is not true, but is that summer
0:57.0	learning loss was responsible for a large fraction of the achievement gap between rich and
1:04.4	core students.
1:05.7	The theory was that parents of means would sort of enroll their kids in highly enriching
1:11.2	summer activities, whereas a lower-income parents would, you know, have them just outplaying
1:18.0	with other kids or, you know, latch-key watching television kind of stuff, and that this was
1:23.9	an important driver of the gap.
1:26.2	I've written about this a few times over the years, and I think the newest research, which
1:31.4	is well captured in education next piece, is that this does not actually drive a lot of
1:38.5	achievement gaps, but the finding on that is mostly that summer learning loss afflicts
1:44.6	high income and low income children alike.
1:48.0	So it's interesting because the education community for a while was so narrowly focused on
1:53.6	achievement gap stuff that a lot of this got headlined as like summer learning loss is
1:58.5	fake, but what it actually showed is that summer learning loss is very real.
	...

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