‘Students simply need us’: Educators urge Congress to fix homework gap now
By Amanda Litvinov
Even before he launched his distance learning classroom last week, middle school band director Blake Bogan knew he faced some unique challenges. “Most of my job is listening to students and helping them mix and blend their sound with their peers,” says Bogan, who teaches at Raceland Middle School in Raceland, La.
It’s a rural town of roughly 10,000 about an hour’s drive southwest of New Orleans.
Since perfecting the mix and blend of a full band isn’t possible online, Bogan, now in his ninth year of teaching, plans to focus more on music theory, reading notes on the staff, and rhythm exercises the group can do together in Google Classroom.
But there’s one problem Bogan can’t solve on his own: the “homework gap,” or the inability to do schoolwork at home due to the lack of internet access. Any chance schools have of closing that gap lies with Congress: Lawmakers must allocate the desperately needed funding and choose the most efficient mechanism to distribute it.
Some of Bogan’s students have no access to the internet at home, and because of the pandemic, can no longer spend time in school buildings, libraries, cafes, or friends’ houses—the places they may have accessed Wi-Fi in the past.
“Statewide, roughly 30 percent of students have no access to internet service, and/or a device,” says Bogan, president of the Lafourche Parish Association of Educators. “The areas hit hardest are rural, low-income families. Those students are going to be left behind the most.”
Louisiana is one of ten states, primarily in the South, with the lowest rates of household CONTINUE READING: ‘Students simply need us’: Educators urge Congress to fix homework gap now - Education Votes