The Academic Effect of Quarantine On Students

By: Aya Boutassamout, Class IV

Photo credit: Pixabay

“Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced new updates on the City’s response to COVID-19. The City will move towards a remote learning model for all school days until Spring Recess. Students will not report to school buildings for instruction until Monday, April 20, 2020, or longer if necessary.” This announcement was made on March 15, 2020, according to the Office of the NYC Mayor.

At first, the shift to remote learning was supposed to be a short time away from school to manage the spread of COVID-19, however as a result of an unexpected number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths which effectively shut the country down, a portion of the 2019-2020 school year and the entirety of the 2020-2021 school year was forever changed through remote learning. This sudden, tragic year of isolation impacted education in unprecedented ways.

"Our children lost so much as COVID struck our state. A year of socialization, a year of memories, and even more," Governor Cuomo said to the Governor’s Press Office.

Now, in the 2024-2025 school year, with schools having returned to their normal routines, students seem to have fully recovered from the COVID-19 quarantine, but that is not the case for everyone.

Disparities Exacerbated

According to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, only three states (Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana) are above pre-pandemic reading achievement standards, and only one state (Alabama) is above the pre-pandemic math achievement standards. The Education Recovery Scorecard for January 2024 states that the learning gap between high-poverty districts and high-income districts grew post-pandemic (which is 2022-2023) in the states Alabama (Montgomery specifically), Massachusetts, and Connecticut. This means that the pre-existing gap between lower-income students’ resources and opportunities compared to higher-income students increased during COVID. These low-income districts were impacted the most by the pandemic and still struggle to recover. An example is chronic absenteeism: according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 39% of public schools reported an increase in absenteeism.

"Kids without internet access are more likely to suffer and not even be in contact with their teachers," Laura Stelitano, an associate policy researcher for RAND Corp., a global research firm which studied the problem, said in an interview with USA Today. 

In particular, students from disadvantaged families who didn’t already have Internet access or any technology necessary to survive the sudden switch to remote learning struggled during the pandemic to attend classes. Special education teacher Jamie Loranzo, who teaches students from primarily low-income families, noted how every day, about a third of his students had their learning interrupted by technology issues such as their Wi-Fi cutting out, according to USA Today. Furthermore, USA Today reported on New York’s initial struggle to get laptops and tablets to every child that needed technology when the pandemic started. Some students only got laptops six months after the switch to remote learning… “..in East Ramapo, some students didn't get Chromebooks until early November. By that time, almost half of the district's 9,000 students were deemed chronically absent for not logging in.”

According to the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research at UC Davis, these disparities in resources exacerbated the existing educational inequities for low-income black and brown communities. As a result, some students never return to school even after the pandemic: they are known as the “missing children.” They are the estimated 230,000 students who disappeared from public school roll, didn’t move out of state, and didn’t register for homeschooling or private school, according to AP News’ data from the census.

Furthermore, students who do return struggle to perform at grade level. 

“The average sixth grader knows more today in 2024 than he or she did in first grade in 2019. But the pace of learning, or rate of academic growth, has been rocky since 2020, with some students missing many months of instruction. Sixth graders in 2024, on average, know far less than sixth graders did back in 2019.” The Hechinger Report, which covers innovation & inequality in education, reported on August 19, 2024. Students’ low performance can be attributed to a number of factors. 

Low-Attention-Span

A vast majority of students struggle to focus in school due to a low attention span, caused in part by the extensive exposure to the internet during the pandemic which caused a rise in social media addiction. With all school activities taking place online, and with most outdoor activities cancelled, students’ days were filled with content: TikTok, YouTube, video games, etc. Valeria Rojas (Class IV) stated, “I would have my zoom on one tab and Roblox on another. I’d play either ‘Flee the Facility’ or ‘Adopt Me’ (two popular games on Roblox).” This shows that the temptation of entertainment and fun, especially for younger students, usually beat their desire to learn in online classes. Additionally, the addictive qualities of social media have only increased the appeal of screens for children. In an article by the National Education Association, Shannon Guevarez, a fourth-grade teacher at South Hanover Elementary School in Hershey, PA, said, “My students are just automatically drawn to screens. It’s worrisome, because we really don’t know what the long-term impact is going to be. Their brains are still developing.” 

Apps like Instagram and TikTok activate the brain’s reward center and release dopamine. According to Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, these apps release a large amount of dopamine at once, that is concerningly comparable to the effects of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. As Gloria Mark, PhD (psychologist), states, “I find it problematic that we’re putting children into a digital world before some very critical mental functions are fully developed. I don’t think kids are really ready for that.” She also explained that young children’s executive functions in their brains aren’t fully developed, which is why children do not have the same level of self-control as adults. Screens exacerbate this problem in an academic setting where they act as a gateway to distractions.

TikTok in particular is noted by students as their main pastime during quarantine. Valeria Rojas (Class IV) said, “I didn’t start using TikTok until a few months into quarantine. I would make ‘Adopt Me’ Tik Toks for fun.” 

According to Statista, during the pandemic the TikTok app had a 180% growth of usage among 15-25 year old users and as of April 2024, it remains one of the top social media apps used at 1,582 million active users worldwide monthly. TikTok boosted the short-form content format with its smart algorithm that learns what the viewer likes to watch, entertaining features like the music trends, filters, dance challenges, and more. This has prompted other top social media apps like YouTube and Instagram to create their own versions of short form content formats such as YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, effectively making this content readily available to a wider audience. This includes younger people since short video content is easily watched on a smartphone, even with low Internet, which many children have access to (60% of population/4.8 billion smartphone users as of 2024 according to Priori Data). 

The main problem with most social media’s short-form content format is the impact on people’s attention spans – especially those of children, who are easily influenced due to neuroplasticity; the brain’s ability to change and respond to life experiences. Neuroscientists from Harvard (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University) said, “Early plasticity means it’s easier and more effective to influence a baby’s developing brain architecture than to rewire parts of its circuitry in the adult years.” This means that children’s brains are especially vulnerable to the effects of scrolling through addictive, short, and fun videos consistently, such as lower attention spans.

Social and Emotional Development Problems

Students missed crucial years of their social and emotional development. Having third, seventh, or eleventh grade through Zoom can’t substitute the real experience of making friends and learning about yourself as you mature.

Ms. Desiree Whitehead, a CAS Coordinator and LTA Para at Brooklyn Latin, offered another perspective on the matter. In her opinion, social media causes insecurity and creates conditions which cause students to seek instant gratification, ultimately worsening their quality of life by providing them with unrealistic expectations for the world around them. She noted that many students didn’t have the confidence they had before the pandemic. Furthermore, they had increased anxiety due to quarantine taking away any opportunities for failure and growth in both social and academic situations. Academically speaking, Ms. Whitehead shared, “...they don’t take deadlines seriously. They think they have time to do something last minute. They feel like their (college) application needs to be perfect, and if it’s not they don’t want to try.” Ms. Whitehead uses many methods to get students on track such as conclave, but she takes away student’s cell phones, is strict about them being silent so they get work done, and encourages them to attend office hours for extra help. Additionally, she offers a place where students can work during lunch, and helps them make a plan on what must be done to catch up: “Where is the problem at, how many hours needed to study, and who do they need help from?” 

Conclusion

The Harvard Graduate School of Education states that, when just looking at the test scores from years after COVID, it seems as if kids missed 3-4 months of school in 2021. Due to the lacking test results, districts began to bring about interventions to catch students up, but these haven't yet been at the scale required to close the gap created by the pandemic.

The pandemic widened the racial achievement gap significantly, increased students’ exposure to social media, and as a result, has affected students’ attention span. As high school students, it’s important to understand any potential effects COVID had on our mental health and our academic capabilities to be able to move forward.