According to a report by CBS, about 40 percent of school districts in America have not reopened, leaving students to participate in some form of remote learning.
And it is not working. To say the very least.
Students in about 40 percent of school districts across the country haven't seen the inside of a classroom in more than eight months – and their grades tell a sad story. https://t.co/JfOD7YzAQT
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) December 7, 2020
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Students Are Struggling
Grades are in decline for many and the school disruption is taking an emotional toll on kids.
CBS News gave a snapshot of this problem in a Monday report.
“In Houston, one of the largest school districts in the nation, the number of students with failing grades is exploding,” CBS News reported.
“During the fall of this year, 42 percent of students received one or more Fs in the first grading period, which was 100 percent virtual,” CBS News noted. “Last year, only 26 percent fell into that category.”
Experts insist that it is social factors that are the main drivers of this problem.
Dan Domenech has served as a school superintendent for almost three decades and is the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.
Domenech told CBS News, “We know that there has been a significant loss of learning, but I’ll tell you, we’re less concerned about that than we are about the social and emotional factors.”
“We’re seeing an increase in the stress that students are feeling, the emotional impact that this is having on them,” Domenech said. “We’re carefully tracking suicide rates, which is a major factor.”
“So, we are more concerned right now about the emotional well-being of our students than we are about their academic loss,” he added.
It’s not particularly controversial nowadays….
Here’s @ashishkjha, Dean of Brown school of public health, saying much of the same… applauding MI’s Governor for keeping schools open at double-digit positivity, and citing NYC as what-not-to-do.
— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) November 29, 2020
It Is Clear: School Shutdowns Causing Significant Harm
The Washington Post published a similar story in late November observing that remote learning has been a disaster.
“After the U.S. education system fractured into Zoom screens last spring, experts feared millions of children would fall behind,” the Washington Post reported. “Hard evidence now shows they were right.”
“A flood of new data — on the national, state and district levels — finds students began this academic year behind,” WaPo noted.
The news outlet also observed that racial minorities and the poor were hurt the most.
“Most of the research concludes students of color and those in high-poverty communities fell further behind their peers, exacerbating long-standing gaps in American education,” the Post reported.
On Monday, the education news outlet Chalkbeat reported similar findings due to remote learning.
“In Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere across the country, more students are failing classes this fall,” Chalkbeat reported.
“Students whose grades are lowest, teachers say, are both the students who stopped coming to class entirely and those who have simply fallen very far behind,” Chalkbeat noted.
“He’s still just thinking he should give up, but I just keep trying to encourage him it’ll get better.” A look at how the rise in failing grades this fall is affecting student engagement/self-esteem & how teachers are trying to adapt to keep Ss on track https://t.co/cIffZNwACA
— Kalyn Belsha (@kalynbelsha) December 8, 2020
“In either case, teachers are scrambling to figure out what to do about the many missing assignments” the education new outlet observed.
Chalkbeat added, “Some teachers are giving out more Fs than ever.”
Enough Already: Reopen The Schools
This doesn’t have to continue.
Multiple studies have shown that K-12 schooling is relatively safe and does not contribute to the spread of COVID-19.
Some experts have determined that the best thing for the educational, emotional and physical health of young people is to keep schools open.
That opinion is echoed by our esteemed COVID leader Dr. Fauci:
“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says, adding that while there is no solution that is “one size fits all,” the “best way to ensure the safety of the children in school is to get the community level of the spread low.” https://t.co/th9oAKhHYa pic.twitter.com/pDuTdQ0Vfp
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 29, 2020
So why are about 40 percent of America’s schools not open? Who is this helping? Because we know it is hurting many students.
If there was ever a time to invoke the cliche, ‘Do it for the children,’ that time would be now.
Reopen the schools: Our kids are depending on it.