The Associated Press reports that preliminary test scores around the country confirm that, during the pandemic, “the longer many students studied remotely, the less they learned.” Schools stayed shut even long after it became clear that they weren’t super-spreaders and after vaccines were made available for adults.

Nationally, kids whose schools met mostly online in the 2020-2021 school year performed 13 percentage points lower in math and 8 percentage points lower in reading compared with schools meeting mostly in person, according to a 2022 study by Brown University economist Emily Oster.

Depressing though this is, it is not in the least bit surprising. We are only just beginning to see the full effects of the “global disaster” that is learning loss.