To Counter Learning Loss, We Need to Empower Students, Not Systems Commentary By Jude Schwalbach is a research associate and project coordinator in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. When 56.4 million American students moved from in-person to online learning at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, educators feared how the country’s minority and low-income students would fare. Their concern—that America’s most vulnerable children would fall behind—has become a reality. About 3 million of the country’s most marginalized students have not experienced any formal education — virtual or in-person—since March 2020 , according to last October’s Bellwether Education Partners report.