Remote learning’s failures can’t be fixed by handing out Chromebooks or hooking them up to broadband, writes Tanesha Peeples on Education Post. It’s a lot worse.
Schools have lost track of three million high-need students. Photo: Pexels/Pixabay
At first, Peeples supported closing schools to stop the spread of coronavirus. “I was more concerned about Black kids in low-income communities returning because we already know the system doesn’t give a damn about their safety and well-being,” she writes.
She’s changed her mind, Peeples’ writes. “They have to go back to school and soon. The sanity and livelihoods of parents, social, emotional, physical well-being of and overall, academic futures of students are at stake.”
Three million high-need students haven’t been in a classroom — physical or virtual — since March, warns a Bellwether report on the attendance crisis, Missing in the Margins. These are English Learners, students with disabilities, students in foster care, homeless children and migrants.
“Studies show two-thirds of high school dropouts never re-enroll and some of the ones that do, end up dropping out again,” Peeples writes.
Of course, the three million missing students were locked out of their schools.
The study didn’t look at students’ attendance by race, ethnicity or family income. It’s almost certain that millions more are out of school, real or remote.
In Los Angeles, parents are “desperate” to get vulnerable students back in class, writes Esmeralda Fabián Romero on The 74.
Parents “feel like they’re failing their kids because they don’t know how to do the [distance learning] work,” said Mary Lee, mother of a Los Angeles Unified graduate with autism and a special-education advocate.
The district plans to bring small groups of students back to campuses next week.