On an unseasonably balmy March afternoon in Westbrook, Maine—a suburb of Portland, the state's largest city—parents gather outside Congin elementary school to collect their children.
三月的一個下午,緬因州威斯布魯克(緬因州最大城市波特蘭的郊區)的家長們聚集在康金小學外接孩子。
Before the pandemic five years ago, when schools here and across America shut down, Congin was middling, ranked by test scores in the 50th percentile of primary schools in the state.
五年前疫情爆發時,這里和美國各地的學校都關閉了,康金小學處于中等水平,根據考試成績,它在全州小學中排名前50%。
Since then it has sunk to the 30th percentile. Schools are like complex cellular organisms; when they sicken, there can be multiple causes that are hard to sort out.
從那以后,它的排名已經下滑到了前70%。學校就像復雜的細胞生物;當它們生病時,可能有多種原因,很難找出原因。
The parents at Congin say their children are back on track and thriving academically.
康金小學的家長們說,孩子們已經重回正軌,學業上蒸蒸日上。
The numbers tell a less optimistic story, and they align with the latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
這些數字講述了一個不那么樂觀的故事,它們與1月底發布的國家教育進步評價(NAEP)的最新數據相符,
a standardised test known as America's Report Card, which came out at the end of January.
NAEP 是一項標準化測試,也被稱為美國報告成績單。
It updated grim findings about covid-19's ongoing costs, showing that across the country the pandemic has thus far wiped away about 20 years of educational progress.
它更新了有關新冠持續影響的嚴峻調查結果,表明迄今為止,這場大流行已經抹去了全國約20年的教育進步。
New research offers a culture-wars twist on this deficit: learning loss during the pandemic was measurably worse in America's Democrat-leaning states than in Republican ones.
新研究為這一差距提供了文化戰爭角度的解讀:疫情期間,美國民主黨州的學習損失明顯比共和黨州更嚴重。
A recent analysis by Michael Hartney and Paul Peterson of the Hoover Institution, a think-tank attached to Stanford University,
斯坦福大學智庫胡佛研究所的邁克爾·哈特尼(Michael Hartney)和保羅·彼得森(Paul Peterson)最近進行的一項分析表明,
suggests that prolonged school closures during the pandemic bear much of the blame.
疫情期間學校長期停課是主要原因。
They found that while NAEP scores declined considerably in every state between 2019 and 2024, pupils in Democratic or evenly-divided states—
他們發現,雖然2019年至2024年期間每個州的NAEP分數都大幅下降,但民主黨州或兩黨勢均力敵的州,
where school closures lasted for longer—suffered greater declines than those in Republican states.
由于學校停課時間更長,學生的成績下降幅度比共和黨州更大。
An analysis by The Economist, using a slightly different methodology, yields similar though less pronounced results.
《經濟學人》使用略有不同的方法進行了分析,得出了類似但不那么明顯的結果。
In our analysis, a state's partisan lean had no significant effect on changes in reading during the pandemic.
在我們的分析中,一個州的黨派傾向對疫情期間閱讀變化沒有顯著影響。
But in maths the numbers are clear: pupils in Democratic states have fared worse than their Republican-state counterparts.
但在數學科目上,影響是顯而易見的:民主黨州的學生成績比共和黨州的學生更差。
It is impossible to prove conclusively that school-closure policy affected specific learning results, but the analysis is based on solid evidence.
無法確鑿地證明學校停課政策影響了具體的學習結果,但這一分析是基于確鑿的證據。
Longer closures meant more remote teaching, which in turn is associated with higher rates of absenteeism.
學校停課時間越長,遠程教學就越多,這反過來又會導致缺勤率上升。
And absenteeism, unsurprisingly, is linked with poor academic performance.
不出所料,缺勤與學業成績不佳有關。
Thomas Dee, a professor of education at Stanford, attributes rising absenteeism during the pandemic to "norm erosion" caused by clunky remote teaching and other factors.
斯坦福大學教育學教授托馬斯·迪(Thomas Dee)將疫情期間缺勤率上升歸因于不成熟的遠程教學等因素造成的“規范侵蝕”。
"Many students and parents simply began seeing less value in regular school attendance," he says.
“許多學生和家長開始認為線下正常上學的價值降低了,”他說道。
His research shows that the districts that kept schools closed for longer (which were disproportionately likely to be poor) saw more chronic absenteeism once they reopened.
他的研究表明,學校停課時間較長的地區(這些地區很可能發展很差)在重新開學后,長期缺勤率更高。