The shutdown may cause a greater learning loss for minority and low-income children

Are They Setting My Children Up for Failure? Remote Learning Widens Education Gap: Students in Mississippi’s Jackson Public Schools district, who are predominantly Black and low income, already lagged their peers academically. Shutdowns set them back even more by Tawnell D. Hobbs of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Preliminary research suggests students nationwide will return to school in the fall with roughly 70% of learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year, and less than 50% in math, according to projections by NWEA, an Oregon-based nonprofit education-services firm. It expects a greater learning loss for minority and low-income children, who have less access to technology and whose families are more likely to be affected by the economic downturn.

About 26 million public-school students, just over half in the U.S., are considered low-income and rely on free or reduced-price meals at school."

"The district’s academic plan is for teachers to go right into next year’s curriculum and fill in the learning gaps along the way. Many students will start having missed about a quarter of the last school year.

Missing those months will leave some children across the country, especially those already behind, struggling to catch up, educators said. “I think of it as an academic death spiral,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington Bothell. “I don’t know how you do algebra without pre-algebra.”"