Remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated educational inequalities, resulting in long-term achievement gaps.

What's this about?

People disagree about whether remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic made school gaps worse for a long time.

Many students learned less, but experts still debate why and how long the gaps will last.

What supporters say

• Tests from many places show that students lost learning during the pandemic, especially poorer students and lower scorers.
• U.S. school areas with remote or mixed classes often saw lower scores, especially in areas serving poorer families.
• Some students had fast internet, computers, quiet rooms, and adult help, while others lacked these supports.
• Schools also gave very different levels of teacher help, language help, disability help, and online lesson skills.

What critics say

• Studies show links between remote learning and lower scores, but they cannot prove remote learning caused every loss.
• Illness, stress, family money problems, and missed school days may also have hurt learning during the pandemic.
• Test scores alone cannot show whether these gaps will stay for life.
• Some school areas recovered faster after classes reopened, so the future may differ from place to place.

The bottom line

The evidence strongly suggests that the pandemic widened school gaps, with poorer students often falling further behind.

Remote learning likely played a part, but we do not know if it caused all losses or how long they will last.