The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently revealed new data indicating students are even further behind than before the coronavirus disrupted the world. Entering the fall semester, roughly 40% of students in public schools nationwide were lagging in one or more subjects and under par with their grade levels. Pre-pandemic, that number was 32%. During the 2022-2023 school year, it reached 45%, and in the following year 47%. Signs seem to point to school closures as the primary cause - at least, that appears to be the consensus among most experts and critics. Yet learning has stagnated over the last few years and, in some cases, regressed. Why are students unable to make progress in academics?

For starters, students appear to have gaps in their fundamental skills. A few months ago, Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit newsroom specializing in education, spoke to a math teacher who claimed one reason for the academic struggle is that many schools didn't review old material when the students returned to the classrooms and instead just jumped into new lessons. "[W]hen in-person school resumed in her city in 2021," said Barshay, "administrators discouraged her from reviewing old topics that students had missed and told her to move forward with grade-level material." The teacher told Barshay the mantra circulating at the time was "acceleration not remediation." "[T]he worst thing they ever did," the teacher explained, "was not provide that remediation as soon as they walked back in the door."

Another issue is the decline in children's mental health, on a downward trend since 2011, a phenomenon social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been studying for years. He believes "the transition from play-based to phone-based childhood" has caused an epidemic of mental illness among children. Social media, excessive screen time, lack of outdoor play, and little face-to-face socialization with friends outside school all factor into Haidt's theory.

Too many adolescents don't have the perseverance necessary to concentrate for very long, especially when it comes to reading. In August, researchers at the University of Southern California published a study reporting ubiquitous psychological distress among teenage girls and pre-teen boys. The boys are hyper and inattentive, a combination that causes "conduct problems," like "restlessness, fidgeting, distraction, and acting out without thinking." Symptoms often include loss of temper, "fighting with others, lying, cheating, bullying, [and] stealing," to name a few.

Teenage girls, on the other hand, are struggling emotionally, "experiencing anxiety, depression, often feeling worried or worrying, being nervous, having many fears, and complaining of physical manifestations of anxiety - like headaches and stomachaches."

But here's the thing: Even kids who had yet to enter the school system when the pandemic disrupted daily lives are now behind academically and delayed developmentally. "We are talking 4- and 5-year-olds who are throwing chairs, biting, [and] hitting," said Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, speaking to The New York Times in July.

If kids who weren't even walking until after schools reopened are having similar learning issues as those whose lessons were hindered, then perhaps the theory that kids fell behind because they lost instruction time has some flaws. Yes, school closures undoubtedly played a massive role in the current state of children's academic decline, but something else has clearly changed. Teachers will have difficulty getting these young minds "caught up" if children's mental and developmental health is not addressed. Absenteeism and psychological distress are likely mere symptoms of a larger problem. Guidance counselors can only do so much. To mitigate the crisis will require more than passing a bill or slapping a hotline to suicide prevention on the back of school IDs. Awareness is nearly useless without action.