School readiness losses during the COVID-19 outbreak. A comparison of two cohorts of young children

Gonzales et al. (2022) published “School readiness losses during the COVID-19 outbreak. A comparison of two cohorts of young children” in Child Development. Their work is important both besides of its international nature and its research summary. We have long known that income inequality adversely impacts children’s school readiness and school success. Gonzales et al. begin by noting that, “In the past, researchers have shown that other large scale events (e.g., the SARS and N1H1 epidemics, the 2008 recession, the great depression, and World War II) were powerful enough to divert children from normative developmental trajectories with long-lasting effects (Almeida & Wong, 2009; Benner & Mistry, 2020). For example, children who received less education during WWII experienced adverse effects 40 years later (Ichino & Winter-Ebmer, 2004).”

Part of what I like about their approach is that they note that, instead of pretending we can isolate the effects of school closure, “Instead, we should consider the pandemic as a myriad of interactive factors contributing to hardships among young learners (Bacher-Hicks & Goodman, 2021) related to the impact of the pandemic on children's families (e.g., job loss, financial losses, remote working, illness, death, stress, mental health, and improvised parenting practices), teachers (e.g., stress, the sudden switch to online learning), social lives (e.g., loss of social contact), and access to services (e.g., daycare, delayed healthcare visits; Ananat & Gassman-Pines, 2020; Bacher-Hicks & Goodman, 2021; Rothstein, 2020).” They add that research has already identified negative impacts of school closure:

When elementary schools closed for 8 weeks in the Netherlands, children lost the equivalent of 20% of what would be achieved during a typical school year (Engzell et al., 2021). Another study examined achievements in reading and math among three million elementary school children. When comparing children who were exposed to the pandemic to a reference group that was not, the authors found that scores in math dropped 5%–10% but reading scores did not significantly differ (Kuhfeld et al., 2020). Among children in Belgium, scores in math (SD = .19) and Flemish language (SD = .29) dropped more in a cohort of children exposed to the pandemic than in a reference cohort (Maldonado & De Witte, 2020). 

They then address achievement gaps and inequity:

Before the pandemic, large achievement gaps distinguished learners according to household income (e.g., Chmielewski & Reardon, 2016; Papay et al., 2020). These gaps are exacerbated because of the differential impact the pandemic has on children according to factors related to their socioeconomic status (SES). For example, low-income parents are more likely to be essential workers, with the risk of increased COVID-19 transmission, and not be able to care for their children during confinement periods. Also, low-income households are less likely to have a quality internet connection which is necessary for online learning. Financial strain also makes it less likely that parents can afford private tutoring to compensate for school closures (Bailey et al., 2021). Furthermore, children from lower-income households are more likely to experience overcrowding in small houses, food insecurity, unstable home life, and mental health issues, including trauma, anxiety, and depression (Masonbrink & Hurley, 2020). These children suffer more from the impact of school closures, thus increasing achievement disparities (Atteberry & McEachin, 2021; Stewart et al., 2018).

They proceed to describe the situation in Uruguay and elsewhere the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic led to the suspension of face-to-face classes. Nonetheless, deaths per capita in Uruguay were among the lowest in South America by the end of 2020, which, unlike in other countries, allowed educational authorities to restore face-to-face activities during the last period of the year, including the administration of a nationwide school readiness assessment that has been implemented regularly since 2018 within public schools. This scenario provided the setting for a natural experiment on the impact of the COVID context (e.g., school closures, economic crisis) on child development. To our knowledge, no research has quantified the impact of the pandemic on preschoolers’ development. 

In Uruguay, schools ordinarily are open for 185 instructional days from March to mid-December. In 2020, schools were open on average 80.6 days, but variability was high (56–113 days for percentiles 10 and 90, respectively). In Uruguay, children in age 5 classrooms attended school 53.1 days on average (ANEP, 2021), and 104 school days were lost. They studied 4-6-year-old children, using the 2018-2019 school year data to contrast with the data from 2020, with nearly 40,000 children in each cohort. They used quintile data on sociodemographic status and The School Readiness—Child Development Inventory (INDI), a teacher assessment which measures cognitive, motor, socioemotional development, and attitudes toward learning. 

Here are some of their findings:

We found the cognitive and motor development of children was suffering the most, followed by their attitudes toward learning. Within cognitive functioning, Self-projection, Language and Logical-mathematical skills showed the largest losses but effect sizes were small. . . . Our study evidenced that the COVID-19 context had a small but significant negative impact on anxious and avoidant internalizing behaviors. 

In addition, they found sociodemographic differences in that children in the highest quintile suffered “less pronounced” losses, especially in language and math skills. This is important research that needs to be replicated, but highlights potential very long-term impacts of the pandemic.