This is my 36th year in education as coach, teacher, assistant principal or principal. The information reported in the article is nothing new. The students who come from backgrounds where education is important will be ok and the students who come from low income, many urban, inner city schools and where every day is survival will not do as well.
Was remote learning a complete failure? No, not for students who had internet access and someone to make sure they were getting the work done. It was for those students who do not have internet access or have someone at home to help with school work or even have some care to help or do the work.
Economic and racial inequality are vey real. I do not want to offend anyone on here but especially our posters who are not white. Most of our urban public schools are economic depressed and have a very high percentage of minority students. Parents in and around urban areas that can do not send their child to a public school, most opt for a private school of some kind. Those parents are willing to pay big bucks to make sure "Johnny" and "Sally" get a good education at a high tuition cost of $12,000-$30,000 dollars a year per child. On the other hand, we have many inner city parent/guardians who cannot afford to send their child to any school but a low performing school. Fair or not, that is the reality of the situation.
Don't even get me started on testing! In the United States, we test every student all the way through 12th grade. Many foreign countries test all students up to 6 grade and then students are moved into groups based on academic levels or deficiencies. The next time you see a chart or graph or hear a news report about how bad American students are doing in Math and Science, remember one thing, it is comparing apples to oranges and not apples to apples.
One other thing I will mention briefly is that not every student has access to internet service. Two years ago in March, before we shut down the last 9 weeks of school due to COVID, we sent out a written survey to our kids during the school day. Out of roughly 400 students in our high school building, we had almost 150 that did not have any internet service at home. Our school district here is large, 184 square miles and kids travel a long way on a bus or automobile to school. There is no internet in the rural areas where most of our students live. If you could see some of the "homes" they come from, you would not believe people actually live like they do.
I may type more later but this is just a quick summary of some of my issues in edcuation.
www.nytimes.com
