The School Year Really Ended in March (Susan Dynarski)
Susan Dynarski is a professor of education, public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. This article appeared in the New York Times May 10, 2020.
School-age children across America are struggling to learn under challenging conditions. Some, no doubt, have made real progress.
But it’s time to admit that, for the vast majority of students, online learning and work sheets are no substitute for trained teachers in classrooms.For most children, the school year effectively ended in March.
If the country doesn’t recognize this fact and respond accordingly — with large federally funded programs to reverse the losses — we will do great harm to a generation of children who will learn less than those who went before them. They will read and write more poorly and be less likely to graduate from high school and college. The resulting shortage of highly trained workers will hamper the economic recovery and intensify earnings inequality.Educators, parents, students and schools are doing what they can in a harrowing situation. But for most students it isn’t nearly enough, and the United States will need to marshal enormous resources to get education back on track.
About a third of the school year has been sacrificed to the pandemic. Consider that a year of U.S. public education costs about $400 billion. That implies that about $133 billion may be needed to make up for lost instructional time.*
That’s a lot of money, roughly equivalent to the cost, in today’s dollars, of the CONTINUE READING: The School Year Really Ended in March (Susan Dynarski) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice