COVID-19, the educational equity crisis, and the opportunity ahead - ,The Brookings Institution

COVID-19, the educational equity crisis, and the opportunity ahead

COVID-19, the educational equity crisis, and the opportunity ahead

As the one-year anniversary of campus closures due to COVID-19 passed last March, nearly half of America’s children were 

attending schools operating remotely or open only on a hybrid basis. In California, more than 70% of students were attending schools that were fully remote.

But spring brings new hope. Amid steps to ensure safe health practices and the acceleration of vaccinations, the rates of transmission have decreased from earlier peaks in the winter and students are beginning to return to school.

While the return of students to campus is something to celebrate, it is essential to note that the pandemic and related prolonged school disruptions have and will continue to have a profound impact on the lives and learning of students.

Due to inequitable access to health care, income inequality, and disproportionate employment in high-risk, “essential” jobs, low-income, Black, Latino, and Native American communities have borne the brunt of the pandemic, with dire health and economic impacts that hinder their children’s educational opportunities and learning. It is difficult for children to learn if they are sick or hungry, or if they have family members who are sick or even dying. Some students have found themselves without a safe, stable place to live, lacking basic necessities, and disconnected from needed services and supports when schools—a primary avenue for public service delivery—closed for months on end. CONTINUE READING: COVID-19, the educational equity crisis, and the opportunity ahead

Recommendations for a restorative restart

1. Center relationships. • Connect 1:1 with every family and every student to build partnerships, trust, and communication between families and educators. • Create dedicated time and space for relationship-building and re-engagement. • Implement positive and restorative discipline practices.

2. Address whole-child needs. • Conduct regular student wellness screenings. • Assess student learning and review data on attendance, engagement, grades, and stakeholder perceptions about school conditions and climate. • Create an action plan to meet the individualized whole-child needs of every student, by addressing student trauma, implementing community schools strategies, and better aligning services within schools and districts to meet students’ diverse needs.

3. Strengthen staffing & partnerships. • Pair students with high-dosage tutoring and mentoring. • Provide mental health supports. • Offer expanded learning opportunities, including those in the summer and in out-of-school time, that are hands-on, fun and engaging, student-centered, and complementary to classroom learning. • Staff up to support student re-engagement by hiring new staff, liaisons, and community partners.

4. Make teaching & learning relevant & rigorous. • Advance racial equity and cultural responsiveness through instructional materials and books. • Advance racial equity in teaching through providing all educators with professional development opportunities and strategies and tools. • Offer students choice and voice in their learning. • Focus on priority standards and lessons to accelerate rather than remediate learning.

5. Empower teams to rebuild & reimagine systems. • Create restorative restart and transformation teams so that this work is systematized and continues long term. • Establish a districtwide vision and framework for transformational and systemic change.

COVID-19, the educational equity crisis, and the opportunity ahead

Brookings Study: How D.C. School Choice Intensifies Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Brookings Study: How D.C. School Choice Intensifies Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Brookings Study: How D.C. School Choice Intensifies Segregation

The Brookings Institution published a study of the D.C. school system, which is almost evenly divided between public schools and charter schools. It was written by three scholars: Vanessa Williamson, Brookings Institution; Jackson Gode, Brookings Institution; and Hao Sun, Gallaudet University. The title of their study is “We All Want What’s Best for Our Kids.” Their findings are based on close reading of an online parent forum called “DC Urban Moms,” where school choice is an important topic.

What they found is not surprising. Choice intensifies and facilitates racial and socioeconomic segregation. This is the same phenomenon that has been documented in choice programs everywhere. The most advantaged parents master the system and get their children into what is perceived as the “best schools.” The “best schools” are those that have the most advantaged students.

The study begins:

Public education in the District includes a system of traditional public schools and a system of public 8
charter schools; in 2018–19, these schools served over 90,000 students at 182 schools. The city is highly diverse, as is the incoming school-age population. Among children under five, 48 percent are Black, 27 percent are white non-Hispanic, and 17 percent are Hispanic.9 54 percent of the city’s public school students are in CONTINUE READING: Brookings Study: How D.C. School Choice Intensifies Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

ANDRE M. PERRY: Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them - Brookings

Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is refusing to back down on a federal requirement that states must administer standardized tests this year, although a letter to state leaders from the Department of Education last month said that states will have flexibility on how to apply results. States concerned about the safety of administering a test during a pandemic may implement shortened versions of assessments.

This relief from the hammer of accountability, if not from the tests themselves, has gotten a mixed reception from anti-testing advocates, school leaders, and teachers who are still trying to ready schools for face-to-face learning. They’re right: Greater accountability and standardized testing won’t give students the technology they need, give teachers the necessary PPE to stay safe, or give families the income to better house and feed themselves during the pandemic so that kids can focus on learning. And if there was ever a time to see how misguided our accountability systems are in relation to addressing root causes of achievement disparities, it’s now.

On its face, relieving students, teachers, and families from the grip of test-based accountability makes sense. We know student achievement, particularly in low-income schools and districts, will dip due to circumstances related to the pandemic and social distancing. We know the source of the decline.

And we currently use standardized tests well beyond what they were designed to do, which is to measure a few areas of academic achievement. Achievement tests were not designed for the purposes of promoting or grading students, evaluating teachers, or evaluating schools. In fact, connecting these social functions to achievement test data corrupts what the tests are measuring. In statistics, this is called Campbell’s Law. When a CONTINUE READING: Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

The importance of clean air in classrooms—during the pandemic and beyond - Brookings

The importance of clean air in classrooms—during the pandemic and beyond

The importance of clean air in classrooms—during the pandemic and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an increased focus on public health, particularly in school settings. From social distancing to testing regimes, education leaders are making serious changes to ensure that schools are safe for students, staff, and teachers. As the school experience continues to be reinvented, research points to an overlooked but potentially critical factor when thinking about reopening: air quality. While we have known for some time about the negative effects of air pollution on child health, recent evidence indicates that pollution also has detrimental effects on student learning. In turn, these relationships suggest the potential for some highly cost-effective interventions to raise student performance—and keep kids safer during the pandemic.

EVIDENCE ON THE EFFECTS OF POLLUTION ON COGNITION

To date, most research has linked pollution to student learning using variation in outdoor air pollution. Researchers (see here and here) have documented significant declines in test scores when students take tests on days with high levels of particulate pollution. Another study compared students attending schools downwind relative to upwind of highways and found that increased air pollution from being downwind lowered test scores and raised behavioral incidents and absences. Similarly, in a recent working paper, a co-author and I use year-to-year variation in power production combined with wind direction to show that pollution from coal-fired power plants lower students’ test scores. CONTINUE READING: The importance of clean air in classrooms—during the pandemic and beyond