Older students also can return to school
but need to observe the same precautions as adults under 65: washing
hands, not touching their faces, and so forth.
Globally, according to a research review published recently in
The Lancet,
a leading medical journal, the number of Covid-19 deaths prevented by
school closings has been vanishingly small. The same can’t be said about
the closings’ educational effects, which have been devastating.
Regular public schools were not prepared
to switch to distance learning. Teachers were not trained; equipment was
not in place, and as UNESCO put it in
a report
on school closings’ adverse effects, parents were “unprepared for
distance and home schooling.” This was “especially true for parents with
limited education and resources.”
During the lockdown, only one-fifth of the school districts surveyed by the
Center for Reinventing Public Education—including
districts in many of America’s most populous cities—required their
teachers to provide live online video lessons to students.
Validly measuring student performance was
even more challenging. Scheduled tests, especially those serving as
gateways to selective colleges or validating promotion to higher
educational levels, were disrupted. Online exams risked being unfair to
students without the needed computer technology and internet
connections—and may have made
cheating all too easy.
Giving pass/fail grades for online work encouraged lazy students not to
do much of anything and punished hard-working students by not giving
them letter-grades reflecting their accomplishments and efforts.
We know from both research and experience that students learn only if they spend
enough high-quality time on task.
They need to concentrate on what they need to know, within a
well-designed curriculum. Their efforts need to be focused on studying
that leads to their mastery of the subject-matter. Most children need a
skilled and knowledgeable in-person teacher to accomplish this and,
according to
a study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, do not do as well in an all-virtual setting.
A survey of public-school students in Broward County, Florida
on online learning during the lockdown found that 48% did not foresee
completing their school work for the week, 45% had trouble focusing, 40%
spent less than three hours per day on schoolwork, 81% joined video
classes only a few days a week, and 52% didn’t feel motivated enough to
do schoolwork. And that’s in a district with considerable experience
with online learning.
Usually, as Fordham Institute president
Michael J. Petrilli
points out, only those who are “high-achieving, self-motivated
learners” with considerable family support at home succeed in schooling
that is online only. This is not to deny that a number of programs that
blend online and classroom learning performed well pre-Covid-19. It is
instead to emphasize that with the current state of the art there are
drawbacks to education that is completely virtual.
The shutdown also has increased
the existing achievement gap
between children from well-educated families and those from
less-educated families. We already have, under regular conditions, a
“slide” in skills and knowledge after summer vacation. That summer slide
hurts children from less well-educated households the most. We know
from
a Canadian study
that prolonged teacher strikes (say, four weeks) can dramatically
reduce student performance, particularly in math. The effects of the
lockdown will be
worse than the summer slide.
Because of the lockdown,
a study from Brown University’s Annenberg Institute shows,
students will begin the 2020-21 school year with about 70% of what they
should have learned in reading this year and with less than half of
what they should have learned in math. The loss in math will be even
worse in lower grades.
There is, however, a new,
very rare childhood respiratory disease
(multi-system inflammatory syndrome) that seems to be associated with
coronavirus. The key is detecting these rare cases, not letting them
divert us from re-opening.
The school lockdown has been a grievous
error. We now must find ways to live with the consequences. Children
should return to their classrooms now if their school has its protective
practices worked out and attend make-up classes in brick and mortar
buildings during the summer. They should be given tests to see where
their learning needs to be re-started. Many may have to repeat this past
year’s grade next fall.
Children have only one childhood in which
to master skills and knowledge so they can fulfill their potential.
Contrasting the tiny public-health risks with the devastating
educational deprivation, it is imperative that public officials let
America’s children return to school now."
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