Stop trying to “catch up” pandemic kids

I find all of the focus on “catching kids up” after the pandemic misguided. Yes, kids’ test scores are lower than they were before the pandemic. But why should we care? The pandemic affected every child and caused some kind of delay for every child. But it seems like an article of faith that we need to “catch kids back up.”

When every child is delayed, no child is.

We should stop judging pandemic kids by pre-pandemic education criteria. Those criteria were screwy anyway, and we’re stressing out children and teachers when we demand they learn/teach faster than they can handle. There’s a limit to how fast people can learn, and there’s a limit to how much teachers can do to shove more knowledge into brains.

Let pandemic kids learn at their own pace. And if it takes them an extra year, that’s OK. They’ll still learn what they need to know and become thoughtful members of society even if it takes a little longer.