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The Hechinger Report
Planning ahead to catch up students when school reopens after coronavirus
Mississippi students may not return to school this year. Experts say now is the time to start.
By Bracey Harris
April 3, 2020
In Mississippi and across the nation, schools closed because of
coronavirus are struggling to find ways to educate children remotely.
But even as Mississippi’s education leaders adapt to new platforms,
experts say, they must begin to plan ahead. Once campuses fully reopen,
schools will need clear strategies to catch up students who have been
unable to keep up their studies at home, the experts advise.
Thousands of students already harmed by the state’s achievement gaps and underfunding will be hit hard.
“This virus is exacerbating the inequalities we knew were there before.
The kids who have the least are getting the least now,” said Pedro
Noguera, an education professor at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “They will, in fact, be behind the kids who are learning
still. If the state is serious about equity, it will try to some things
to address that.”
Summer School
Noguera joins an early chorus of researchers and academics suggesting
summer school should be offered, if possible, to help students catch
up. Douglas Harris of the Brookings Institution has suggested making
stimulus money available to offer summer school for students who fall
behind during closures, either virtually, if schools must remained
closed, or on-site to make up for missed instruction. The former might
still edge out students already impacted by the nation’s digital divide
or who are without adult supervision.
There’s an additional reason for urgency around the well-known strategy
this year. Research has shown losing academic ground during the summer
months or “summer learning loss” tends to impact low-income students
more. Without intervention, the gaps could widen even further this
summer given how much class time children have already missed.
Find time in the day
Beyond summer school, principals and superintendents will also confront
the question of the best way to help students catch up when school
resumes — probably with the beginning of the 2020-21 year in August.
Alanna Bjorklund-Young, director of research at the John Hopkins
Institute for Education Policy said one strategy schools might consider
is keeping students with their previous teacher for part of the next
school year. Children’s current teachers, Bjorklund-Young theorized,
may be better positioned to review material and content kids missed or
struggled with during this time.
Another research-based approach is the use of one-on-one or small group
tutoring. While this approach can grow costly, the solution doesn’t
require upending the entire school day. Depending on the program,
Bjorklund explained intensive tutoring could occur before, during or
after school.
Ideally, Noguera said, kids would also have access to after school
programming providing enrichment activities like art or robotics to
balance out ramped-up instruction.
Ramp up rigor
Although it might be tempting to avoid rigorous assignments for
students who need extra help, cautioned David Steiner,
Bjorklund-Young’s colleague and the executive director of the
institute, that’s the wrong approach. Educators who back away from
tougher lessons because they don’t want to overwhelm students could do
more harm than good. Steiner said the evidence is beginning to mount
that struggling students do better when they have the same level of
access to challenging, grade-level materials as their peers.
“It doesn’t mean you ignore the child,” Bjorklund-Young added. In
English language arts, for example, a child who has trouble sounding
out or “decoding” words, she explained, will still need intervention.
But struggling students should still be challenged to think critically
about the same books their peers are reading, and to share what they
learned from a story. An elementary school teacher can rephrase
discussion questions to make them more digestible or pair a struggling
student with a classmate who has a firmer grip on reading skills.
Steiner said the challenge educators will face in the fall is to pull
up students who are in rough academic shape, rather than “teaching
down.”
“The tool to do that is not just professional development; it’s curriculum,” he said.
Related: Double whammy? State allegedly misspends funds for Mississippi’s poorest, now COVID-19 closes schools
Too many teachers, Steiner argued, have to spend time hunting down
materials for their own curriculum. That can lead to shaky quality and
frustration. And those hours spent searching online can rob teachers of
the time they need to think through presenting challenging material in
a way that reaches struggling students.
The bottom line
All these interventions, of course, are dependent on funding. Amid
fears that rising unemployment could trigger a recession, school
leaders in Mississippi could face tough budget choices ahead,
especially in communities that lack the tax base to fill in state
funding shortfalls.
If Mississippi is going to build on the academic progress it’s made in
recent years, the state will have to make a commitment that any layoffs
do not disproportionately impact the highest needs schools that already
struggle to hire support staff like interventionists, social workers
and literacy coaches whose roles will become only more critical in the
months to come, said Ary Amerikaner, a vice president at the nonprofit
Education Trust.
“Students in those schools will already be facing the instructional and
social and emotional impacts of the coronavirus and it is important
that supports remain as consistent as possible,” Amerikaner said in a
statement.
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