"WASHINGTON (AP) — Students around the world suffered historic setbacks in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic, with declines in test scores so widespread that the United States climbed in global rankings simply by falling behind less sharply, a new study finds.

 

The state of global education was given a bleak appraisal in the Program for International Student Assessment, the first study to examine the academic progress of students in dozens of countries during the pandemic. Released Tuesday, it finds the average international math score fell by the equivalent of three-quarters of a year of learning. Reading scores fell by the equivalent of half a year."

 

(more)

 

https://apnews.com/article/pisa-international-test-scores-pandemic-4ce5780904f2e3f6f16af57912242224

 

Besides that the cited article states:

 

"There’s no doubt the disruption of the pandemic was a major factor in the global setbacks. But the OECD cautions against blaming it all on COVID-19. Science and reading scores were falling before the pandemic, it says, and some countries were already trending downward in math, including Belgium, Finland, Canada and France.

It also finds the link between school closures and academic setbacks was “not so direct.” (bolding mine)"

 

I'd like to see further studies examining if poorer test results now might be in part by potential brain damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 as it has already been discovered that

 

Covid spike proteins accumulate in the skull-meninges-brain axis

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.04.535604v1

 

Covid causes brain shrinkage (including grey matter thinning)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063523/#:~:text=After being infected with COVID,et al.%2C 2022).

 

Children show developmental impairments when exposed during pregnancy to to maternal covid infection (not that they'd have their SAT scores yet, but, again, indicating direct effect of covid on their brains)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38061413/

2 minutes ago, thaicurious said:

It also finds the link between school closures and academic setbacks was “not so direct.” (bolding mine)"

 

Indeed, as they further explained:

 

"It also finds the link between school closures and academic setbacks was “not so direct.”

 

A survey of students found about half faced closures of more than three months, but it didn’t always lead to lower scores. There was “no clear difference” in performance trends between countries that had limited closures, including Iceland and Sweden, and those with longer closures, including Brazil and Ireland, according to the report."

 

I haven't read up on it in its entirety and even if some studies do find some correlation, I'd be less surprised by that then I'd be that this virus is dumbing down society generally, perhaps showing up in the students because they're the ones who get tested.

 

I'm frankly getting concerned of dealing with doctors who don't mask, understanding that their brains might already be effected of their prior infections. So how do I know that they're working at the same capacity of expertise they might have enjoyed pre-pandemic. If it was up to me, I'd insist every professional of every discipline get relicensed to assure competency.

 

I see mental depletions in people I know and I know still people who I grew up with so I know these people quite well. Especially some of the anti-vaxxers, their brains don't work as well as they did before. It's real obvious. Extend that to those I didn't know before and especially to those who are making medical decisions for others and that can be scary.