Different and Better

The Economic Impacts of Learning Losses by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann
OECD Report, September 1, 2020

We know what we have lost. In human terms and learning measures, we have witnessed and experienced the grief and diminishment caused by COVID-19. Now, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has weighed in with an economic opinion on educational losses. It could have been a report that further burdened educators. But the authors go beyond stating the financial facts of loss of face-to-face school time to suggest an inspiring conceptual frame for creating better schools going forward. They raise up the value of making available to all teachers the newfound, COVID-necessitated technological experience; of assessing effectively where each student is in coming back to a new school year; and of acknowledging that COVID affected students in unequal ways that now call teachers to respond in more individual ways. The report is both a sobering and inspiring read, clear in its message and concise in its recommendations about the need for schools to be different and better today than they were when they closed their doors in March 2020.