Title: Differential effects of COVID-19 school closures on students' learning
Abstract: One of the more controversial issues on how societies have met the COVID-19 pandemic has been the closure of schools for longer periods. Suspicion runs high that interruptions of schooling would have long-lasting negative effects on students' learning. However, the evidence remained mixed. Using Norwegian national test data (N = 369,977), we were able to implement a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effects of school closures on students' learning in Norway. Preliminary results suggested that Norway's school closures early in the pandemic had a near neutral effect on students' learning growth between Year 8 and 9, but the effect varied widely across cohorts. Students who were disadvantaged along the socioeconomic scale were more likely to experience reduced learning growth as the result of school closures. Counterintuitively, learning growths among the high SES students was also small--potentially due to test design and/or ceiling effects. We discuss how well the currently available data to monitor students' learning growth/loss can inform policy makers and the wider society in precarious times.