Math Knowledge Is Another Casualty of the Pandemic
“Shalinee Sharma can track the impact of Covid-19 on students’ math achievement on a daily basis by checking the website of Zearn, the nonprofit company of which she is chief executive and co-founder. Students go to Zearn to take math lessons and to earn badges, which they get for a perfect score on a unit quiz. Early in the pandemic she and her staff noticed that high-income students were using Zearn more than ever, but the low-income students that Zearn is most concerned about were dropping off. The gap seemed to narrow at the start of this school year, but lately it has widened again.”