Consider that before 2020, 6 percent of Detroit eighth graders were performing at grade level; afterward, it dropped to 3 percent. The average American classroom in 2019 contained a spread of three grade levels of ability. After the pandemic, this spread expanded to six grade levels of ability. Put another way, in the same classroom of thirty students, teachers had to somehow support learners who were four-to-five grade levels behind while not boring the students who might have been ready to move ahead.
