Schooling in confinement: Natural experiment and stress test

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic entailed a true natural experiment that allows to collect empirical evidence about the counterfactual of "what would happen if all school closed"; and at the same time, it has amounted to a thorough stress test that has transparently displayed both the strengths and weaknesses of education systems as a whole and of each and every actor and element within them. Our starting point is that the crises created by the pandemic have accelerated trends and processes, challenges and problems, and that such acceleration of History implies both new risks and opportunities for school systems. This paper uses some of the existing empirical evidence to explore those risks and opportunities and the options available to protect and sustain public school systems under the new normal.