- Schools have not gone back to pre-COVID practices. Online courses, use of digital tools, fewer tests, dropping SAT/ACT requirements, and most of all budget cuts in school districts – all are still happening today.
On the other hand, you have the Mississippi miracle, achieved at a budget increase of $35 per student, and a total budget of around $12k per student-- a far cry from the more recent example of education failure in New York City at $26k/student (elementary) and $32k/student (middle school)
The chief costs for schools are salaries and premises, both of which are highly location dependent.
- there are lots of different long term trends that vary by country
- some seem to have started too long ago to be tick tock or similar
- some countries see a pandemic drop and recovery
- this implies to me that:
(I) the pandemic had a strong temporary effect on average educational attainment (though I have strong priors here), and
(II) other things like long-term trends in teaching approaches, new distractions for students, or availability of AI for ‘cheating’ also have an impact
See coverage of the recent test results in the FT here: https://www.ft.com/content/724f8ecb-1e2b-4c7f-bbb6-14239abd5...