Children’s education will go down as one of the greatest costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Newly released federal data shows that for a second year now, school children are falling behind at historically high rates.

The commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) said that public school leaders estimated that about half of their students began the school year behind a grade level in at least one academic subject.

“Both this school year and last school year, public school leaders estimated that about half of their students began the school year behind a grade level in at least one academic subject. These data suggest that academic recovery will take time,” said NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr.

Before the pandemic, roughly one in every three children were behind a grade level. After school closures and struggles of remote learning, one out of every two students fell behind. It remained that way for the second consecutive school year since the pandemic.

The new data echos the findings of the first set of data post-pandemic: children continue to remain behind, and catch-up isn’t coming at a fast enough rate to make up for the learning losses during COVID-19.