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| Forbes

Pandemic-Era Policies Caused Dramatic Education Decline

By Jeanne Allen |
  • September 2, 2022
classroom-2093744_960_720
Mandating school closures for nearly 2 years cost many of the nation’s students their educational future. CREATIVE COMMONS

Students In Transformational Learning Environments Were The Exception

The results of the Nation’s Report Card for nine-year-olds in reading and mathematics are deeply troubling. In the first full-scale assessment since the pandemic, the report found a widening gap in achievement between students of color and their white counterparts, a chasm of 33 points that grew since the pandemic, and was nowhere near closing prior to 2020. Reading and mathematics scores for students at all five selected percentile levels – 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th – sharply declined in comparison to 2020. Public education’s ability to respond in real time to a crisis was a failure by all measures.

Screen Shot 2022-09-02 at 2.13.13 PM
2022 Nation’s Report Card shows unprecedented and steep decline in reading and math NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS (NAEP)

This data is not surprising to anyone following students’ overall achievement since March, 2020. For almost two years, the majority of students in America’s most needy areas – urban, suburban and rural – were forced to stay home and were fed the educational equivalent of pablum. It was crisis schooling at its worst, with teachers being forced to manage and instruct students almost entirely off-line with few tools at their disposal, all while alternative, robust, well-researched virtual education practices were being offered by top education companies like Edmentum and Stride Learning that combine the best of synchronous and asynchronous learning that could have been deployed within days. They would be utilized later by many communities, but the new numbers demonstrate that the majority of US school systems failed to reach and teach most students during their time out of the classroom. In the end the numbers bear witness; it was a disaster, though an avoidable one.

That should be the lesson from this breaking news. Students had to suffer such miseducation because dated school systems, under the influence of powerful teachers unions which restrict teacher practice, were forced to stay closed. And top government officials let it happen.

When students needed to be connected to their teachers and classmates the most, many districts even stipulated that teachers not be required to be “live” online, or be available to students more than a certain number of hours per day. The head of the Los Angeles Teachers union said “one of her union’s lines in the sand was making sure teachers wouldn’t be required to engage in face-to-face virtual learning,” according to EdWeek in April, 2020. There was no focus on developing innovative ways to deliver education and giving families who were open to going back the opportunity to put their students into physical schools again.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-SCHOOLS-CLOSING
Despite many other diverse schools being opened to students, New York City schools remained closed to students for at least another 18 months. (November 19, 2020, Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP)AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Comments like: “I didn’t like that we were not in person with our teachers,” and “Last year was really a struggle for me because I’m the kind of person who likes to work in person,” echoed common themes in students’ feedback.

While schools were closed, leaders from the nation’s largest teachers unions joined First Lady Jill Biden at the White House to offer their counsel on school affairs. No parents were represented at that meeting. Subsequently it was reported that the CDC was in regular contact with the teachers union about how and when to report on the safety precautions and data.

Fast-forward to nearly 10 months after the pandemic’s most serious weeks, and the Chicago Teachers union defied the school board’s order to open while hundreds of districts, including Fairfax County, VA, said that even with vaccinations their teachers would not return to school, contradicting the relevant CDC guidance. Such behavior – which some have called a rolling teachers strike – persisted in some cities for two years.

New York Times article on the pandemic's impact on student learning
Media headlines fail to tell the full story. SCREENSHOT

All of that history was missing from this event’s media reports. While coverage was abundant, many papers, including the New York Times seemed to leave the blame with the pandemic itself, rather than those with the power to influence the outcomes, as well as the officials who did exercise their influence on schools. The Twitter debate was fast and furious on this particular point. “Politicians had a choice on how to respond to COVID, and the choices some of them made harmed children,” said one commentator.

Even today, union strikes in a variety of new forms and with new names persist despite the evidence that learning loss is bad for kids. The Los Angeles’ teachers union has called their latest action a “boycott,” while it’s really a strike, vowing not to allow their members to do voluntary, paid instructional days even if the teacher wants to help her students. It’s clear that the minority of teachers who do not want to serve students dominate the profession’s direction for the majority who would thrive if rules were not made for them on a daily basis.

This is miseducation. In 2019, only one-fifth of black 4th graders were proficient in reading on the Nation’s Report Card. Those same students are less likely to graduate on time, earn a higher education credential or degree, and will make 23% less than their white counterparts. A further decline of any sort is a nail in their coffin. As journalist Laura McKenna put it, “It really does matter that kids can’t read or do math. Educational inequality is a really bad thing. Once behind, kids never catch up. Anybody who minimizes today’s NAEP test results needs to have their head examined.”

When it comes to their future, student achievement is more than anecdotal. Dr. Susanna Loeb, the director of the Annenberg Institute at Brown University told the Times that “Student test scores, even starting in first, second and third grade, are really quite predictive of their success later in school, and their educational trajectories overall.” “We knew how damaging this would be,” said 50CAN CEO Marc Porter Magee. “We knew the same month schools closed. It shouldn’t have taken this long for a ‘wake up call’.”

In fact, the solutions and innovations that could have been deployed to avoid this disaster were apparent all along. The evidence is mounting that while education was not occurring in most of the nation’s school districts, it was evident in thousands of other education environments. Catholic and other private schools, charter schools and many civic organizations across the country helped students return to school with strict safety precautions, creative spacing and innovative educational delivery models that would only be adopted by some traditional public schools more than a year after.

CARE Elementary, a private school in the poor Overtown section of Miami, pivoted within weeks of COVID to bring students whose parents were essential workers back to school for in-school instruction for students experiencing challenges, and quickly made plans to reopen in full in September despite the fact that much of Miami-Dade County and the nation were already planning to stay closed. Student achievement would increase from pre-pandemic levels, and surpass comparable populations in public schools. Even with COVID, CARE’s vulnerable students gained reading proficiency.

Friendship Public Charter Schools in Washington, D.C. put every employee of the 8-school network to work, no matter what their position, to visit families and help distribute 3,800 devices and 400 hotspots to families and scholars, who then could access a proven-technology driven education that Friendship had presciently worked to establish. By September, 2020, most students were back in session when the majority of students in Washington DC public schools were not.

Within five days of the shut-down, the Catholic Partnership Schools were able to adapt instructional delivery to fit the needs and technical limitations of their community. Its schools then opened on time in the fall of 2020, both in person and remotely for families who wanted it, and with the buy-in of families and teachers. They were even able to begin new work in two Cleveland schools in person in the middle of the pandemic.

In these and the thousands of other such cases where education providers deployed outstanding and transformational education during the unprecedented crisis, families had the assurance that the schools they chose for their children would keep them safe and learning. The natural consequence was parents flocking to these new education providers, and there they remain, causing enrollment declines for the schools that failed their kids.

And that is the story that should have been written when the NAEP scores were released. It should have been a story about how education not confined by a student’s income, location or discriminatory zoning practices is fuel for their future, while 19th century era education laws confine their citizens to the same status they are born into, imposing further socioeconomic and racial disparities on our nation.

This is not the first dire news about the United States’ failure to deliver excellence to every student. That came in 1983, and just about every couple of years since. The question is whether it can be the last. It can be, if we unleash innovation, and give families, not the system, the power to direct the educational path of students.

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The Yass Foundation advances the four core STOP principles: Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless education. Each year, the Foundation will reward dozens of organizations, building a growing network of innovative providers that
demonstrate these qualities in their commitment to new ideas, technologies, and approaches to learning that bring education into
the 21st century. The Foundation is powered by the Center for Education Reform (CER) in partnership with Forbes.

We may not agree on much of anything, but one thing that is a uniting force that we all agree on is that education opens doors, it’s the great equalizer.

Alyssa Farah Griffin
Co-Host on The View and CNN Political Commentator,

The pandemic didn’t stop our families, scholars and educators from learning, growing and thriving.

Patricia Brantley
CEO,
Friendship Public Charter School

I am still processing the magnitude of this experience and so grateful for meeting each and everyone of you.

I look forward to continuing our transformative work in our communities and together.

Taylor Shead
Board Member,
Dallas Education Foundation

You are in a moment in history that we have never seen before.

Any of us with a disruptive idea have a shot at trying to prove something.

Randall Lane
Chief Content Officer,
Forbes Media

We often jump to the what, without thinking with the community about the why.

Michael B. Horn
Author,
From Reopen to Reinvent

I hope you all think about the fact that the impact you are having, you will never even know how widespread it is.

That’s the beauty of education, you impact lives in such a deep way.

Alyssa Farah Griffin
Co-Host on The View and CNN Political Commentator,

Entrepreneurs are people who teach us about needs we don’t know we need.

This is the fundamental basis of what we are doing.

Carl Schramm
University Professor,
Syracuse University

What has been created here at the accelerator is truly incredible.

We may never know how pivotal this really is for education in America right here, right now. This group of people will work together to force real change permissionlessly.

Rob Blevins
Executive Director,
Discovery Center of Springfield

Remember, you are doing the work of civilization.

You are planting the seeds of a better world, despite any bad news, you’re doing great things.

Steve Forbes
Editor-in-Chief,
Forbes Media

We see the Pulitzer prizes, we see the MacArthur Genius Grants, we see the Pritzker prize for architecture.

But for the one field that drives everything, education, there is no definitive prize. The Yass Prize has filled that vacuum -- it's more than just the money. It's about spurring ideas, it's about spurring innovation. We are very very proud to be a part of it.

Randall Lane
Editor,
Forbes

What is good for families is good for the school because families want great schools.

Ceci Schickel
Senior Director of Organizing and Advocacy,
Mastery Charter School

If you get to the accelerator after the application process, go in knowing you already won.

The fact that you are now with a group of your peers you really get to see how world class the education profession is.

Christopher Simmonds
Principal,
CARE Elementary School

We realized long ago that there’s a lot of money in the system, and it’s just not directed to the children.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

Unfortunately, the bureaucracy that’s behind the school system is more interested in perpetuating jobs and keeping the system in place, rather than giving children the freedom they deserve.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

When you are trying to advance and think beyond the status quo, this can be a lonely place, because our systems are structured to do the same thing.

It is important to surround yourself with like-minded individuals who foster innovation.

Phyllis Lockett
CEO,
LEAP Innovations

The real source of wealth in society is the human mind, not material things, because with the human mind, great wealth can be created.

Steve Forbes
Editor-in-Chief,
Forbes Media

I'm deeply humbled and grateful to be part of this group.

The last month has been a tremendous experience and I'm so inspired and motivated by the amazing work this group is doing. Collectively, we’re working towards a real-world goal and it’s leaving me empowered and motivated to apply what we learn.

Jeffrey Imrich
Co-Founder,
Rock by Rock

The fact that education has become partisan is upsetting, and I just hope that this award will encourage more states to view this as a bipartisan issue.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

Success happens after many pivots and changes.

Michael Moe
Founder and CEO,
Global Silicon Valley

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