A Few Pennies the Stupider, Perhaps

When corporate education reformers wring their hands and cluck about "learning loss" among K-12 students, they are, of course, talking about a drop in test scores.  How else would they ever think to measure such a thing!  

That drop in test scores is due to a decline of in-person close surveillance and prodding (teaching) during the pandemic to increase test scores (learning).  

As E.M. Forster observed early in the last century,

As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one would be a penny the stupider.