- Schools have not gone back to pre-COVID practices. Online courses, use of digital tools, fewer tests, dropping SAT/ACT requirements, and most of all budget cuts in school districts – all are still happening today.
On the other hand, you have the Mississippi miracle, achieved at a budget increase of $35 per student, and a total budget of around $12k per student-- a far cry from the more recent example of education failure in New York City at $26k/student (elementary) and $32k/student (middle school)
And we can not just change childrens habits, after we forced them to sit at home for 2 years with nothing but youtube! They missed key developmental phase!
Now, I will say that the Pandemic was pretty traumatic here in the US, at least a million people died last time I looked at it. Those people were somebody's neighbors, grandparents, uncles, etc. So maybe the realization that "nobody gives a shit about you except for your productivity" was a lesson they internalized?
Largely, I think it is the parents though. Like I said, I have kids, and when their grades slump, I get on them to fix it. A lot of people are really unwilling to do that.
So they got at least some of what a lot of kids missed out on: socialization.
With homeschooling, parents go out of their way to find other kids for theirs to socialize with, but during lockdowns this wasn't allowed (if the parents even had any idea about it, since it was forced on them and not something they chose to do).
I think the only thing that was really curtailed was my sons took a few months off of karate? A lot more traumatic was probably mom having to sleep in a hotel for a few nights because she got inadvertently exposed to COVID as nurse (when we really didn't know how dangerous things were), or me having to camp out in my folks' motorhome for a week because I was at the tip of the spear medevac-ing people out of camps in the arctic. I know that was scary for my kids because they told me it was.
Them not being able to have playdates being some generational trauma is nonsense. What wasn't nonsense was watching aunts and uncles die from a pandemic that we did next to nothing to fix in America until the vax came out. Also, I would not be surprised if there aren't some cognitive effects to COVID. Despite being very careful, we got it too. Everyone had it here. That probably ain't good for kids' development.
But mostly, I think it's the phones that are having the biggest impact on social development and probably on learning too. Read this paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w35310
If people like doom scrolling more than they like screwing, it's probably not unlikely that they like doom scrolling better than studying.
Here in Illinois it was over a year, possibly two in some places. The schools didn't return to in-person right away after the government mandates were lifted.
Edit:
> But mostly, I think it's the phones that are having the biggest impact on social development and probably on learning too.
Please re-read the comment from the other person you originally replied to.
(2nd edit: removed something based on a misread)
> Staying at home with Grandma and Papa
Lockdown prevented relatives visits.
> Pandemic was pretty traumatic here in the US, at least a million people died last time I looked at it.
Millions die every year, that is normal for a country with 350 million people!
> You know what my kids don't have? My kids don't have a smart phone. You know what my kids don't have? Unlimited access to devices.
My kid did not had device before pandemic, we got tablet for lockdowns. My kid was social and full of energy, it always wanted to play outside and climb trees. Two years of isolation, in tiny apartment were pretty bad!
Now it does not want to go outside, it does not want to socialize! It adapted and got new hobies.
> Largely, I think it is the parents though
Yes, i blame myself. For not ignoring lockdowns and not fighting back! Against sociopaths who enforced this bs!