The COVID-19 pandemic had detrimental impacts on nearly all aspects of society, most importantly education. In the weeks following the initial announcement of the pandemic, the lives of students across America were changed forever as schools switched from in-person learning to remote teaching. This sudden switch would have lasting effects on the youth as educators continued to face challenges and pushbacks all the while having little to no assistance from the government. Even now Four years after the pandemic was initially announced many American students still struggle with remote learning, leaving their future hanging in the balance.
In the United States, most policy regarding education is decided by the state and local governments because of the Tenth Amendment. As a result, when the pandemic began the initial response from the federal government arrived all too late. On March 27th, 2020, two months after the US Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency, the federal government passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act which created a “formula grants to be distributed to states based on their shares of Title I-A funds, to be used for response activities and long-term closure planning and coordination and educational technology purchases, as well as a portion of the Governor’s Education Relief Fund, a discretionary sum to be used for emergency support grants for childcare, K-12, and higher education”(Storey, N., Slavin, R.E., 2020). Though this would alleviate some of the major financial concerns facing many schools, many students living in rural or disenfranchised communities already struggled with access to remote learning and many other resources such as food and technology. Due to differences in socio-economic status, a major concern for educators was the engagement and involvement of students, “High-poverty and rural district leaders reported that they were less able to provide remote learning options for all students than wealthy districts. Only 34% of high poverty districts reported being able to provide access for all, compared with 62-73% for suburban and wealthier districts” (Storey, N., Slavin, R.E., 2020). Furthermore according to a study done by researchers at the RAND Corporation “nearly 90% of principals reported that students in their schools lacked internet access and 40% reported that access to technology and/or internet was also a barrier for their teachers, 35% reported that district policies related to the use of online tools presented limitations(Zhang, Jingshun 2021). Lack of proper integration, federal influence, and equal funding are responsible for the shortcomings of the American youth amidst this crisis.
Both students and educators alike struggled with the transition to online learning. Educators across America were quickly forced to adapt to a relatively new teaching style, having to play the role of both “instructional designers and pedagogical facilitators using tools which few had fluently mastered” (Zhang, Jingshun. 2021). While online learning had served as a useful tool in higher education this lack of unfamiliarity within the K-12 system caused many educators to falter. Moreover, the lack of proper integration, parental support, and technological experience caused educators to become further estranged from their students. According to an EdWeek survey “in April, 74% of teachers said their students’ current level of engagement was “much lower” or “somewhat lower” than it had been before the pandemic, and nearly a quarter of students were “essentially truant.”(Zhang Jingshun, 2021). Virtual learning reaped mixed results as “Researchers of full-time K–12 virtual schools (Ahn & McEachin, 2017; Gill et al., 2015; Woodworth et al., 2015) have reported students in the virtual schools performing 0.1 to 0.4 SDs below students in traditional public schools, while in some contexts they found null or slightly positive results”(Zhang, Jingshun 2021). This issue was not strictly a k-12 issue as many higher education students also struggled with remote learning. The struggle for many of these students stemmed from lack of access to mental health resources as “The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated college students’ known mental health risk factors and other health concerns while simultaneously imperiling students’ academic outcomes, putting their future prospects dependent on college retention in jeopardy”(Lerderer, Alyssa, Hoban, Mary T. 2021) This in tandem with the major shift in social interaction caused the social and emotional development of many young adults and college students to be stunted, shaking one of the fundamental pillars of the collegiate experience which is finding oneself and their respective community.
The failure of the federal government to provide proper oversight and distribution of resources amidst the pandemic set the stage for how many young Americans would be learning. As a result of this lack of preparation generations of Americans will forever be affected by the Pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just affect how students are learning, it also forever altered their social development as well as estranged them from educators. The impact of the pandemic is still felt now four years after the initial declaration and one year after quarantine mandates were lifted. In Conclusion, we must work with educators and parents alike to properly prepare them on how to better assist the future generation and learn from these failures.
Works Cited
Arinstonvik , Aleksander and Dajimana Kerzic, “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Life of Higher Education Students: A Global Perspective”, MDPI.com, October 13 2020
Huck, Carla and Jingshun Zhang, “Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on K-12 Education: A Systematic Literature Review”, ERIC.ed.gov, Summer 2021,
Lederer AM, Hoban MT, Lipson SK, Zhou S, Eisenberg D. “More Than Inconvenienced: The Unique Needs of U.S. College Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic”. Health Education & Behavior. 2021;48(1):14-19. doi:10.1177/1090198120969372
Storey, Nathan, Robert E. Slavin “The US Educational Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic”. Papers.ssrn.com, 23 Jul 2020 https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=624013110082095064006029028098090011052056061029027087091075072125103064125122069074053002099029105061121073064028067065066065039041082054021074082029112123068007100062032055071000072008096027125102075120095107069103097117098091072026121030093092103027&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
Mueller, Tom “Impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on rural America” PNAS.org, 16 September 2020 https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2019378118
