Dire lockdown learning curve
WHEN Jonathan Malesic, a writing professor with two decades of teaching experience, returned to campus at Southern Methodist University after a year of teaching remotely during the pandemic, he was shocked to find a new class of students who were less enthusiastic and less engaged than ever before
“Students weren’t turning in homework, and when they were, they were turning in assignments really late,” he told The Post.
“The quality of the work really had simmered.”
Attendance quickly fell off, and those who did show up were falling asleep in classes. One student, Malesic recalled, made a habit of watching European soccer matches on his laptop every class.
“I worried it was only me, but it turns out it was part of a bigger trend,” said Malesic, author of “The End of Burnout.”
‘Far from normal’
A bombshell report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research organization at Arizona State University, has uncovered vast learning lapses and unprecedented educational setbacks due to school closures.
“Three years after the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 is continuing to derail learning, but in more insidious and hidden ways,” the researchers concluded. “Things are far from normal, even though students are back in school.”
According to the report, fewer students arriving at college today are prepared for the level of work that’s expected of them.
In fact, the average ACT score for the Class of 2023 was just 19.5 out of a perfect 36 — the lowest in over 30 years.
And 42% of test takers failed to meet any single subject-area benchmark, “showing a decline in preparedness for college-level work,” according to the ACT organization.
It’s a trend mathematics professor Lee DeVille has seen firsthand.
“It seems that students who were in high school during the pandemic are coming out weaker in their mathematical skill sets than they used to,” DeVille, Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Mathematics Department at University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, told The Post.
More students signing up for math classes, he reports, are failing to place into advanced courses post-pandemic.
“We’re definitely seeing a real drop-off in student readiness to take college-level mathematics, which has been concerning,” said
DeVille, who has been teaching college students for 25 years. “The average student today is less able to place into a calculus or college algebra course.”
Indeed, a survey by the Education Advisory Board found that 73% of high-school counselors agree that the pandemic has weakened their students’ preparation.
Easy A’s, hard lessons
DeVille said he has also noticed that some older students who were given slack on grades and assignments by professors during the pandemic failed to develop foundational mathematical skills.
“We’re seeing students are having trouble adjusting to the higherlevel maths, because they weren’t necessarily pushed as much at the lower levels,” DeVille noted.
He worries that, as students who went through the pandemic at younger ages arrive at college in the coming years, early-learning gaps will present a new host of issues.
“I think that’s going to end up being a sustained challenge,” he said. “In my experience, typically when students are struggling with calculus, it’s usually because they have more fundamental issues — for instance, their algebra is weaker.”
Worryingly, the CRPE report found that the average eighthgrader is 9.1 months — an entire school year — behind in math.
Dr. Jenny Darroch, dean of the Farmer School of Business at Miami University of Ohio, said her school has taken notice of this lack of preparation.
“I’m very cognizant of the fact that the gap between job readiness and what’s coming from high school might have widened,” Darroch, who has been in higher education for three decades, told The Post.
She says she’s heard from colleagues that the maturity of a post-pandemic 18-year-old is roughly equivalent to a 14-year-old before lockdowns.
“We’re concerned we’re going to have to do even more with highschool graduates to get them up to where we know that employers want them to be,” she said.
Darroch is focused on enhanced measures to make sure students with learning gaps keep on track — including early warnings and quick intervention when they begin to slip behind with grades and attendance.
She’s also leading an effort to provide on-campus tutoring support to students in more disciplines.
“We always had a writing center where you could go to get an essay read if you need some support,” she said. “What we’re talking about now is actually adding a quantitative excellence center to mirror the writing center.”
Malesic, for one, reported already seeing some progress this year in terms of attendance and homework.
And educators insist standards won’t be dropped.
Said Darroch: “We won’t lower the math requirement. We’re not going to graduate weaker students.”