What coronavirus has taught us about the digital divide
There’s a long list of policy problems we should have solved before a global pandemic turned almost everything into a crisis.
There’s a long list of policy problems we should have solved before a global pandemic turned almost everything into a crisis.
Conservatives are right to be leery of bailing out profligate state and local governments, especially for needs that bear little relationship to—and pre-date—the virus crisis and its economic consequences. A well-crafted bill would base the amount of funding for state and local governments upon an estimate of the actual costs and losses incurred as result of the pandemic. It cannot be a blank check to fund every item on a state’s wish list. But telling states to “make hard decisions” is not going to cut it.
All over the country, states, districts, and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by our ever-changing yet imperfect understanding of the virus itself.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
With everything going on in the world, one can be forgiven for forgetting that we’re in the midst of an election year. But in 167 days, Americans will decide whether to give President Trump four more years. Joe Biden has essentially locked up the Democratic nomination, so the next big question is whom he will tap to be his running mate.
In the summer of 2013, After New York’s adoption of new, more rigorous testing benchmarks under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, student test scores plummeted around the state, wiping out years of paper gains.
We are finally nearing the chasm. Two months ago, the nation was rightly applauding K–12 educators for having to make the adjustment to a virtual classroom with almost no warning or planning.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Those best positioned to push back against much of the nonsense that courses through our schools are school board members. And those interested in effecting positive change should adopt a three-part agenda: let our schools refocus on preparing children for informed citizenship; restore character, virtue, and morality to the head of the education table; and build an education system that confers dignity, respect, and opportunity upon every youngster.
Many urgent challenges await the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and its governing board (NAGB) in the coming months, including whether the scheduled biennial testing of reading and math in grades four and eight is feasible during the 2020–21 school year.
A skills gap occurs when the demand for a skilled workforce increases faster than the supply of workers with those skills. As the U.S. economy recovered from the 2008 Great Recession, that gap was evident in many economic sectors.
Editor’s note: This essay was first published by Ed Source. As Californians adjust to a restricted and socially distant life amid the coronavirus pandemic, each of us is forced to refocus on what is most important in our lives.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
The last time I saw my third grade reading students was more than 40 days ago. Like most schools across the country, ours closed its doors as a safety measure to help slow the spread of COVID-19. And like most schools and districts, we faced the challenge of how to ensure our students continued to learn when they could no longer be inside a classroom.
The coronavirus pandemic has confronted school district management teams with four unprecedented challenges:
The complicated matter of how to help students make up ground when they return to school has two main camps. One wants every student to master key skills before moving on, and the flexibility for teachers to go back and spend time filling in the gaps. The other camp wants teachers to spend most of their time remaining on pace with grade-level material. There’s a way to help catch kids up that takes both into consideration.
As thoughts start turning to reopening schools, there’s been no shortage of advice on what educators need to do to prepare and how they should go about doing it. One emerging piece of consensus is that schools may need to start the school year remotely as part of rolling closures triggered by new outbreaks.
The education policy discussion during the COVID-19 crisis is as raucous as ever. Equity. Learning loss. Online education. These are all familiar fights, and the pandemic has not arrested them.
New partnerships are emerging across the U.S.
Secretary DeVos has declined to press Congress to waive major provisions of IDEA, the primary federal law governing the education of students with disabilities. This was the right call, and leaves school districts who have been slow to act facing greater challenges and expenses when in-person schooling resumes.
A crisis—less organic but no less virulent than the coronavirus pandemic—has been raging through the United States for years. Between 1999 and 2016, the rate of drug-related mortality grew 225 percent, due mostly to opioid overdose deaths.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
COVID-19 has delivered countless challenges for essential workers, from nurses and doctors risking their lives due to shortages of PPE to grocery clerks maintaining calm amid hordes of panicked shoppers.
The world has changed. Our understanding of what matters most is evolving to meet new realities. This is as true in education as anywhere. Since “school as usual” isn’t an option, how can we chart a course forward, particularly for our youngest learners in kindergarten and first and second grades? How can we continue to cultivate the critical foundation for a lifetime of learning?
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools. We recently shared this captivating clip of Our Lady Queen of Angels’s Kindergartener Iliana C. teaching her mom number bonds and sentences.
Just when it seems we’ve reached the limit of asinine pandemic proposals in K–12 education, we are quickly reminded that there is no limit. The San Francisco board of education has come up with a real doozy that flies directly in the face of “do no harm” despite what its most ardent supporters may claim.
Over the past few weeks, schools have closed, living rooms have transformed into classrooms, and kitchen tables have become desks. Many parents who typically receive an update on their child’s daily school progress by asking the question, “How was school today?” have been flung into the role of teacher, as districts have moved to various versions of remote learning.
In these uncertain days, with many brick-and-mortar schools shuttered indefinitely, one of Idaho’s leaders in online education has moved in a deliberate and intelligent fashion to transition its brick-and-mortar-based students to online learning.
To throw all or even most of our Covid-19 recovery efforts into remote learning is “shoe bomber” planning: responding to the last attack instead of anticipating the next one. The old normal will be back, and in some places sooner than we think. So let’s think about what that will look like, and whether we will be ready for the foreseeable and dramatic learning loss school districts will face. Plans to make up for lost time require urgency and focus, but should avoid complexity and stay well within the talents and capacity of existing staff.
Good for U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for working on proposals to Congress urging flexibility to implement the primary federal special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), during school closures caused by this pandemic. The CARES Act requires her to propose, within thirty days, IDEA provisions that should be waived, if any.