What Have We Learned in the First Three Years of Education? The Unexpected Reality of Parent-Paradox Relations in the 21st Century
Things have not reverted back to normal as Covid has gradually lost its grip on American life. Today’s teachers and students are living with a set of altered realities, and they may be for the rest of their lives:
Worsening discipline problems. More than 80% of public schools say the swine flu has resulted in worse student behavior and social and emotional development. In the fall of 2021, for example, Denver public schools saw a 21 percent increase in fighting compared with prepandemic levels.
There is growing inequality. American students are feeling a K-shaped recovery, where gaps between the highest and lowest scoring students are widening, as Robin Lake and Travis Pillow wrote in a Brookings Institution article.
Parents are aware of these new realities and are adjusting their thinking. Historically, voters have trusted Democrats more on education. Nat Malkus stated in National Affairs that Republicans were trusted as much by voters as Democrats.
Parents are rethinking, but the nation’s leaders seem blissfully unaware. I have mentioned the alarming statistics, and you would think that education would be one of the most talked about topics in America. You would assume that President Biden would have comprehensive plans to reform American schools. You think that the governors and mayor’s efforts to fix these problems would be front and center in news broadcasts on a weekly basis.
What will the pandemic end be? Three experts on vaccination, vaccines, and a story of three years in the life of a child
When will the pandemic end? We asked three experts — two immunologists and an epidemiologist — to weigh in on this and some of the hundreds of other questions we’ve gathered from readers recently, including how to make sense of booster and test timing, recommendations for children, whether getting covid is just inevitable and other pressing queries.
How will the virus continue to change? According to a group of scientists who studyviruses, there is no reason at all for the virus to stop evolving.
What would Covid look like? David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate, 100,000 Americans could die each year from the coronavirus. Increasing and sustaining high levels of vaccination is something that will need a creative effort. The immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki writes that new vaccines, particular those delivered through the nose, may be part of the answer.
Issac remembers the last fully normal school year being third grade. He is in seventh and has a busy schedule and new classmates.
His mother says the sports program has made a difference in Issac. He’s playing basketball again, he has friends, it’s giving him his life back.
Chronic absences and the impact of COVID on children in the United States and Latin America: A case study in Maryland and Los Angeles Unified School District
Students who are chronically absent are at higher risk of falling behind, scoring lower on standardized tests and even dropping out. Children with disabilities, as well as children of color, are more likely to live in poverty if they don’t attend school.
Absentia fell by more than half between December 2021 and December 2022. The new classes haven’t yet been shown to led to better attendance, but Josh Fraser says the majority of the students identified with a particular topic and that has been key.
When COVID became more endemic, people thought it would result in a better attendance. I’m not seeing that.
More than a quarter of the school districts surveyed by NPR still had high levels of chronic absences.
She said showing up to school made sure you had access to resources, and that included food and nutrition, after school and engaging learning experiences.
“Transportation has been our number one issue,” says Ryan Voegtlin, director of student services for the large Maryland district. He says a bus driver shortage is making it hard to cover all the bus routes.
There are a lot of our higher poverty areas, where some of our parents don’t have as many flexible jobs, where they may lack their own transportation.
In rural San Juan County, New Mexico, there has been an improvement in attendance numbers, but they haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. He echoes the challenges Voegtlin described, with one exception: His school district, Central Consolidated, is partially in Navajo Nation, and his schools serve Native American communities that were disproportionately affected by COVID, with higher infection and hospitalization rates compared to other groups. Families in his district are still recovering emotionally, and the schools still have mask mandates. There’s also still fear around large gatherings of people, which are hard to avoid in schools. Moreover, given the history of boarding schools, Carlson says his district’s Native families don’t generally think of school as a safe place.
Students have lost connections to peers and adults. We need to connect more with kids because of that.
In Issac Moreno’s district, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), attendance has improved compared to last school year, but Superintendent Alberto Carvalho says it hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The challenges of school attendance were reported by multiple districts around the nation and include a youth mental health crisis, heightened fear around health concerns, and transportation difficulties which can make it difficult for students to keep a routine.
School leaders tell NPR that their students have lost a sense of belonging in the classroom after a lot of time away. Hedy Chang of attendance works shares the same concerns.
Home visits are one proven strategy schools are investing in. Connecticut put a significant amount of federal aid towards a home-visit program, and attendance improved over the course of six months.
LAUSD recently started using its home-visit program to target children experiencing housing insecurity. There is a crisis center where homeless children sought shelter, where the most vulnerable kids who are absent most happen to be.
His district has also hired more attendance counselors and “community navigators” to help caregivers tap into district resources, and it’s providing concierge transportation for students with unstable housing.
“It’s not a quick process,” he explains, “but it’s a process that [has allowed] people to start understanding that everyone owns attendance, and not just when it gets to the chronic point.”
He says his district tries to avoid the punitive approaches of years past. They only file charges in the last resort after exhausting other attempts to connect with families.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160358099/school-attendance-chronic-absenteeism-covid
Covideeism: Sharing attendance data with community partners to help cut chronic absences in Grand Rapids Public Schools, after the pandemic
Chang says another way to improve attendance is to gather regular, transparent data throughout the school-year, rather than only once, at the end of the year.
She says that the data you look at regularly can allow you to reach out to students before the challenges are so entrenched.
Grand Rapids Public Schools analyses and collects data multiple times monthly. Mel Atkins, who leads attendance efforts there, found that sharing data can make a difference.
“I know you need the data to know where we’re going and how big the problem actually is,” he explains. We share the data with community partners.
Before the pandemic, he says his district used 8-foot leaderboards to display monthly attendance data. “It did not always go to plan but it did spark a discussion.”
It helped cut chronic absences by over 50% in his district. The pandemic hampered much of that progress, but Atkins says he and his team are focused on restarting those efforts, and getting back to a playbook they already know works.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160358099/school-attendance-chronic-absenteeism-covid
Carlson’s Voice: Growing up to be a part of What I’m here and How I’ve Learned at L.A. Lakers
“We want to provide environments where students want to be, so when they walk in the door, they feel safe and they say, ‘I’m welcome here and I want to learn,’ ” says Carlson of New Mexico.
Giving students some say in creating environments is one way to create environments where students want to be. The school in Brooklyn Center, just outside of Minneapolis, responded by giving students two class periods a week in which to take classes like “Dungeons and Dragons,” “Art in the Garden” or “Make Your Own Video Game.”
“The value of students seeing the power and voice they have, and it actually reflecting in decisions that hugely impact their day-to-day… I think it’s something that creates belonging,” he says.
There is a sense of belonging that has started to make a difference for Issac. He was excited to join the new sports program at his school.
“That’s something that kind of made school fun again,” says Issac, in his L.A. Lakers jersey. He’s been playing basketball and says the fun parts of the school day have motivated him to show up more.