The COVID school closures and remote learning years will prove to be the biggest negative educational/developmental impact on a generation that we've seen in a long time.

And it disproportionately hit the poorest in society the most. My kid had his own room to work in, his own computer to work on, and WFH parents to help him out. He was not, massively, negatively impacted.

In my work, I was in touch with families with multiple children at home, no computers, maybe one or two phones, and no broadband connection. The kids, for all intents and purposes, just lost two years of education.

At least it will lay to bed the sentiment that nothing is learned at school, and that we all could have just stayed home and taught ourselves to code.

It also challenges the belief that what education needs right now is disruption.

I mean it looks like it might have sped it up but it already declined more than that from 2012. So whatever the general reason for the trend is worse.