Remote Learning in Public Schools Is Widening the Achievement Gap

Even now that research shows public schools have not turned into superspreaders, as feared, the education establishment is in little hurry to end distance learning even though it especially hurts poor children, immigrant children and those with special needs.

Sure, they meant well, but as Joanne Jacobs, a California education blogger and freelance writer, told me, thought leaders focused on the possibility that one 12-year-old might die if public schools remained open, but not the consequences of 100,000 kids who don't learn to read or learn math and end up dropping out of high school.

A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the consequences of remote learning and noted: "The public debate has pitted 'school closures' against 'lives saved,' or the education of children against the health of the community. Presenting the trade-offs in this way obscures the very real health consequences of interrupted education."

They crunched the numbers for U.S. students and figured 24.2 million students age 5 to 11 will experience 5.53 million years of life lost as a result of closures in American schools.

In Virginia, the Washington Post reported, Fairfax County Public Schools, which has operated mostly online, published an internal analysis that showed the percentage of middle school and high school students who flunked at least two classes jumped 83 percent, from 6 percent to 11 percent.

Of course, school districts should accommodate teachers and students with comorbidities that put them at risk.

Unless Americans to want to widen the achievement gap even more, the education establishment has to open schools.

https://spectator.org/remote-learning-in-public-schools-is-widening-the-achievement-gap/