Outdoor learning can help students during Covid-19 and beyond
When students at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho, begin returning to in-person classes September 28, everything about school will look different than six months ago.
When students at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho, begin returning to in-person classes September 28, everything about school will look different than six months ago.
American schoolchildren should not be taught to hate their country, or to view it as an “inherently racist” or “white supremacist” nation. But to move forward constructively on this point, instead of in a manner that further divides the country, it would be much better for a broad coalition of the center-right to the center-left to embrace a teaching of history that is clear-eyed, patriotic, and critical.
There’s much energy in the cosmos these days around civics education, history education, maybe even “patriotic” history and civics education.
This spring, the nation was slammed by a pandemic that has thus far killed nearly 200,000 Americans, thrown millions out of work, shuttered schools, and upended the rhythms of teaching and learning. Suddenly the kitchen table became a makeshift desk and “school” came to mean hours seated in front of a Chromebook.
Ohio legislators recently introduced Senate Bill 358, which proposes to cancel all state testing scheduled for spring 2021. The provision calling for the cancellation of state exams would only go into effect if the state receives an assessment waiver from the U.S.
Covid-19 is upending what parents think about America’s schools, motivating them to seek different ways to educate their children. It’s also inspiring enterprising individuals and imaginative policymakers to create new ways to support that parent demand for change.
If schooling continues to be remote through the fall, as it seems to be in many districts across the country, what is to be done about the plight of kids who are at risk for child abuse or neglect?
The first-ever virtual political conventions have come and gone, during which neither party offered a serious path forward on education reform. The Democrats belong to the self-interested teacher unions, and the GOP has become a single-issue party in pursuit of choice, leaving us with a lot of talk but little action.
Some Democrats and Republicans have an unlikely alliance these days around one thing: their sudden rejection of the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP), which funds start-up costs for new, high-quality charter schools.
Around six months ago, stay-at-home orders and school closures upended normal life for children of all ages across the United States. The loss of academic learning has been a huge concern, but we’re not talking enough about the implications of long-term “social distancing” for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.
The National Center for Rural Education Research Networks (NCRERN) is a recently established organization out of Harvard that studies and supports a network of rural school districts in New York and Ohio.
In late July, the Democratic Party released a policy platform that included stances on a variety of issues, including education.
The Republican party has no 2020 platform. They refer people looking for one to the 2016 version. That goes for education along with everything else. The Trump-Pence campaign website doesn’t display policy positions, either, though there’s a section on “promises kept” that includes one skimpy page on education.
Michael Petrilli has written that, “when it comes to education, conservatives should stand for excellence.” So should liberals, and I am a longtime activist on the Democrats’ left wing.
Lost in the political noise of the debate on reopening schools is what parents think about this complicated puzzle. While their varied responses reflect this complexity, there is important consensus on many issues—though significant disagreement on one.
Last spring, the Covid-19 pandemic upended routines for over 56 million students and challenged more than 3.7 million teachers in over 130,000 schools nationwide to continue educating kids in an online format. This transition to “virtual learning” was understandably trying for all educators, schools, and districts, but some managed to do far better than others.
Equity need not be pitted against excellence. But let’s not pretend there are no trade-offs. The two are in tension, if not actual conflict, in many matters of policy and practice. We can assume that progressives will always take the “equity” side. So if conservatives don’t make excellence a priority—be it in matters organizational, academic, or related to extracurricular activities and other nonacademic pursuits—nobody will.
Editor’s note: This was first published as part of the American Enterprise Institute’s Sketching a New Conservative Agenda Series.
In the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s latest report, I was shocked to read that, “less than a third of reviewed district reopening plans reference intervention strategies to help targeted students make up learning they may have lost during spring or summer.”
Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is that low-income communities and communities of color have been much harder hit by the virus than their more advantaged peers. But there’s likely something else: Many low-income and working-class parents simply don’t trust their kids’ schools to keep them safe.
The private schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live, are breathing a sigh of relief that, after much sturm und drang this past week, they’re back in charge of their own decisions about whether and how to re-open.
Research on education during the coronavirus pandemic has been robust. Much of it is table setting for longer-term analysis on virtual curricula, teaching effectiveness, and student achievement. But there is also important ephemera being studied that will form a more immediate image of a difficult and chaotic time.
Today, in what ended up being a somewhat anticlimactic announcement, Joe Biden tapped California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate. Back in May, I examined Harris’s views on education, along with other top prospects, and here’s what I had to say about hers:
As we prepare to reopen our schools, school administrators must examine our back-to-school rituals and upgrade plans for re-entry to account for the challenges presented by Covid-19. In particular, schools must create and clearly communicate the processes for school drop-off and arrival that support social distancing and wellness measures.
A massive amount of lost learning If ever there were a reminder that today’s young people are growing up with unprecedented challenges, it is the events of the past six months. With unfathomable speed, practically every aspect of our lives has been turned upside down.
2020 brings the decennial national census, and with that comes a whole host of challenges and changes brought on by the redistricting that follows—or as it’s sometimes known in its more questionable forms, gerrymandering.
Almost exactly twenty years ago, in August 2000, CBS News’s 60 Minutes aired a segment about a pair of charter schools—one in the South Bronx; another in Houston, Texas—founded by a duo of twenty-something White male teachers. To see it now is to catch a time capsule glimpse of a more earnest and hopeful time.
As coronavirus cases continue to rise, Colorado’s two largest school districts, Denver and Jeffco, recently announced their intention to start the school year remotely.
Senate Republicans released their relief bill this week, the HEALS act, which proposes to steer the bulk of education aid to schools that open for in-person instruction. This is triggering angry reactions from most of the education establishment. Here's a less controversial and more constructive suggestion: Return federal education policy to its roots and require schools to provide “targeted assistance” to their disadvantaged, low-achieving students.
If we are to survive the stress and uncertainty of this year’s school reopenings, we are going to have to learn how to lead from a place of grace and empathy. None of this is easy. There are not any good, let alone perfect, options. The conditions on the ground are changing daily, and the personal circumstances of each family—whether teacher or student—are different.