This open access book compares and analyses the results in twelve countries of the two latest international student assessments Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2021 PIRLS and the Programme for International Student Assessment 2022 PISAampampnbspand tries to disentangle the effects of the pandemic from the long term trends in education. It is one of the firstampampnbspor maybe the firstampampnbsppublished volumes to provide a global assessment of the devastating impact of the COVID19 pandemic on student learning as measured by independent international comparative surveys. The 12 countries discussed in this volume represent a wide variety of educational systems including Chile Ecuador England Estonia Italy the Netherlands Poland Portugal South Africa Spain and the United States.