The Lost Year Of Learning - What Wisconsin Needs To Do To Keep Our Children From Falling Further Behind

Class failures, mental health problems, and social isolation continue to be on the rise in schools in Wisconsin – what can be done to help our children?

Why is Governor Evers ignoring the problem?

The state budget has no recommendations on how to help children catch up

It has been a year since K-12 schools in Wisconsin closed down normal in-person, on-site instruction and moved to virtual instruction, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While many schools have returned to some sort of in-person instruction, it took too many schools too long to get back to near full-time in-person education. Some of the largest districts — such as Milwaukee and Madison — still remain closed to full-time in-person learning.

Our children have suffered in many different ways during COVID-19, but the forced closing of their schools, the isolation away from their friends and teachers, and the lost academic progress that many have experienced have perhaps had the biggest impact on their well-being and their futures.

There is growing evidence that many Wisconsin students are struggling to learn with online instruction. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) apparently does not track the number of “F”s earned by students statewide, but a growing pool of data from local school districts shows academic failure rates have gone through the roof.

The question the Governor and the media seem to be ignoring is how will the Department of Public Instruction and school districts help students recover from the lost year of learning and catch up academically. It is amazing to think that we sit here in March of 2021, a full calendar year after the start of the pandemic, with no leadership and little discussion from Former State Superintendent Governor Evers on what needs to be done to fix a problem so serious, it will haunt our state for many years to come.

Student Failures During COVID-19 And Virtual Instruction Have Increased Dramatically

Study after study at the national level has found that COVID-19 virtual education is not as effective as in-person instruction. Here in Wisconsin, we can look to the Waukesha School District, where 28% of students are failing at least one class this year, a 265% increase from the prior year. The school board was recently presented with the data to suggest that 57% of these failures occurred in hybrid model classes.

The Post Crescent recently reported that one in four Appleton School District high school students failed a class last semester. Students with disabilities and English language learners are disproportionately represented in the group of students failing a class. The district’s Assistant Superintendent of Assessment, Curriculum, and Instruction, Steve Harrison, attributed the failure rate to “the extremely unprecedented year.”

We are seeing a similar trend in the Wausau School District. The Freshmen class has seen a 350% increase in failed classes this year compared to 2019-2020. Across grades 9-12, the average increase in F’s is around 208%.

The Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD) has also seen a massive increase in students failing a class from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021. Across high schools in the district, the average increase in failure rate is on average 133% excluding the district’s traditional online school. The ten traditional middle schools in the district saw a similar trend with an average of 136% increase in failed classes.

In MacIver’s earlier analysis, we discussed how many studies have shown students can safely return to the classroom. A more recent study in Wood County, Wisconsin found that of “4,876 students and 654 staff members, conducted between the end of Aug. 31 and Nov. 29, only seven of the students who tested positive for COVID-19 had their infection traced back to the school. None of the staff members’ cases were linked to schools. In fact, the 191 total number of cases found among the 5,530 students and staff combined meant the rate of transmission for those in the study was lower than the surrounding community (3,453 versus 5,466 per 100,000).” This study, done in our own state, confirms prior research: with adequate safety measures in place, there is no scientific defense for confining students to online learning.