The coronavirus pandemic forced a closing of schools in the spring of 2020, which affected at least 55.1 million students in 124,000 U.S. public schools. Over a billion students worldwide were unable to go to school or university due to measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has had a huge impact on global education.

Almost every state proceeded to have schools remain closed through the end of the 2019-20 school year. Unexpectedly interruptions to schooling have been found to undermine student achievement and even later success in higher education. Across 19 states the average estimate of how much students lost in the Spring of 2020 ranged from 57 to 183 days of learning in reading, and from 136 to 232 days of learning in math. Also, parents had to take on the role of assisting their children while at home which some stated to take about thirteen hours per week.

According to a report from Common Sense Media and Boston Consulting Group, “16 million students lack the devices and internet connections needed to succeed in the at-home learning environment.” The Walton family foundation distributed more than 10,000 devices and internet hotspots for families across the U.S.

There is also the problem and process with when a student gets covid-19 because they have to quarantine and anyone that was close to them could be infected with the disease and need to be quarantined too. When a student has to be quarantined they tend to miss out on a lot of the work at school where they then have to take more time to catch back up to everyone else. Some students decided on the option of virtual schooling, which if not prioritized enough or if the student does not have good time management with their school work; it could cause them to easily get behind and even not focus on learning and instead just on passing however and as easily as they can. The year 2020 was one of the most impactful years on school learning and has caused a lot of changes to the school system and how students learn.