Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools?
Here are two contrasting views about what happens when (if?) children return to school in the fall.
In an article in the Washington Post, Mike Petrilli, president of the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, proposes that all students be held back a grade to make up for the ground they lost when schools closed in March. He also suggests that this is a good time to embrace distance learning.
Jan Resseger, retired social justice director for a religious group, says that this is the right time to recognize the failure of the standards-tests-accountability regime of the past two decades and to develop fresh ideas about children and learning.
Petrilli does not address the many studies (such as CREDO 2015) that show the abject failure of cyber schools. That study found that students lost 44 days in reading and 180 days in math when they were schooled online. Nor does he consider that being “held back” is universally seen as failure. The students haven’t failed. Why should they be punished? Expect a parent revolution if any state or district tries this.
Resseger writes:
Conceptualizing public education as students climbing ladders of curricular standards without missing a rung is only one way to think about education. And while such a CONTINUE READING: Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog