Assessment Board Member: States That Opened Schools Earlier Had Less Learning Loss, But Too Much Focus on That Is ‘a Distraction’

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith,” National Assessment Governing Board member Dr. Marty West reacted to the drop in test scores shown on the National Assessment of Educational Progress by stating that while “states where schools that opened up earlier did lose a bit less ground” academically, “focusing too much on that would be a distraction from the real message” that scores are down in almost every part of the country.

Host Shepard Smith asked, “Was there a difference in performance between areas that re-opened schools versus those that continued remote learning?”

West responded, “If you look across all 50 states, you see a weak relationship where you do see that schools — states where schools that opened up earlier did lose a bit less ground. But I think focusing too much on that would be a distraction from the real message in these results, which is that scores are down almost everywhere.”

Smith then asked, “Is this an America exclusively problem or is it — do you suspect or even have evidence to suggest that other countries have suffered in the same way?”

West answered, “We don’t have the same quality of evidence that we have in the U.S. from other nations, but all the evidence that we do have suggests that this has been a global problem. Schools were disrupted worldwide by the pandemic, not just in the U.S., and students have suffered as a result.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett