COVID and education

[breakingtime91]

Wanted to start a general post to discuss some things that are playing out educationally. I am a fourth grade teacher and just got out of a data meeting.

1. This is BAD.
2. The test scores were very low and the amount of kids in the "needs support" which means below standard, was staggering.
3. Kids are much lower, across my state and nationally, in math than reading.


Keeping schools in hybrid or closed is just going to continue build the deficit. We are doing our best but holy cow is this difficult. I know for me, I am really passionate about teaching. I teared up when I discussing the data and how big of a gap there is.

[Totem Polar]

Dude, I have to drive out and teach 7.5 straight contact hours of music, imminently, but I’ll be back to this thread tonight. Thank God all but one of those hours got a rare exemption for in-person instruction; I only have one online class in there. But yeah, it’s bad. The future of online learning is not anywhere near as rosy as its proponents believe. The outcomes almost universally suck—it’s like the educational version of being mounted in a fight; all you can do is use all your skill to mitigate the damage until you can work to a better position.

[Seven_Sicks_Two]

I married into a teaching family.

My mother-in-law is a retired teacher that still substitutes on the side, SIL teaches elementary Special Ed, BIL is a district admin. My wife spent 10 years as a high school teacher, and left two years ago to sell classroom management software to schools/districts/teachers. Consequently, she is in close contact with the IT and admin side, as well as providing continuing ed training to teachers. Needless to say, education is the only thing they talk about when everyone gets together.

The general consensus is that the remote learning environment is hard on everyone. Teachers are working hard and are overwhelmed, and students are struggling. It is a really rough time to be an educator.

[Duelist]

I’m a high school counselor. We had about 30% engagement in spring second term.

1/3 of our students opted for full time online this semester. We are not doing well there - lots of kids are just flailing, or not even working at all. And then there’s the ten-day drop issue. The others are hybrid. They come on campus two days per week, and work through zoom or google with teachers the rest of the week. I write a 504 plan and get teachers in my office asking how they are supposed to accommodate those needs when they see the student 1 day per week.

This is a mess.

I’m also the girls tennis coach. I haven’t seen most of my team since March. Sports have to be secondary to academics, of course, but working with the athletics side of things, I know that there are kids who only come to school to play their sport, and only get good enough grades so they are allowed to play. Distance learning is harder on them than the overachievers, because they don’t care. They just come to school because they have to.

It’s mess.

[RevolverRob]

These numbers are an unfortunate reflection of the fact that for ~70-years Americans have treated K-12 schools like daycare, with minimal parental investment (declining with each subsequent generation).

While the gaps seem bad and the deficit seems large, it is hardly insurmountable. I actually think it's a good thing that so many children (and their parents) are struggling. I feel bad for the teachers who are doing their best in a difficult time. But for the first time in a long time, parents have no one to blame but themselves. It can't be the school's fault if their kids don't tune in and pay attention when at school. It can't be the teacher's fault Timmy is failing math, when he doesn't do the work. In fact, it sure seems like maybe it's the parent's fault for not making sure Timmy has self-discipline and/or standing behind him and smacking him in the back of the head to get it done.

What we're seeing is a microcosm-cum-macrocosm of the broken American educational system. American K-12 education needs to be held back a grade or two because it's become retarded with respect to the actual progress of students. One thing that a remote learning system has generated is a clear(er) understanding, to legislators and parents, of how standardized testing is a terrible thing. And how students require individualized teaching. And how smaller classes sizes are better.

If you're working in K-12 now - this is a good time to start pushing for fundamental changes to how we evaluate students. Unfortunately, I'm afraid none of those lessons will stick in the long term, we have such short memory spans.

Reminder, I work in higher ed and my sister is K-12 English teacher (with substantial time at both the 9-12 and 6-8 levels, right now she teaches 7th grade).

[Joe S]

Total anecdotal data: 3 acquaintances, all NYC teachers. Not sure all 3 are public. Varying amounts of time in, the neighborhoods they teach in very different.

NYC is doing the hybrid model: students divided in half, Group A attends 2 days, goes remote for 3. Group B is remote for first 3 days of the week, attends last 2. Or something like that. I know some private schools have done 100% one or the other.

2 out of 3 felt positive about it. They feel as though the reduced pupil/teacher ratio makes up for the time split. The one who works a very rough neighborhood, middle school, English, feels that he's making more progress than last year, spending far less time dealing with social dynamics among kids from really crappy environments.

The third is more skeptical. She was waiting for the empirical data.

A separate family member in another state that was full remote in a wealthy area felt that it was same-good for a majority of kids. Hard for them to lack the group activities and socialization, but gifted kids with parental support were crushing it and then having more time to do what they/their parents wanted. There was a small minority of kids with mental/emotional issues who were suffering tremendously, probably at least partially due to ambient stress/feeling like the world was burning around them and not having their normal routine/support system.

My brother's kids don't like it, but are okay with it and doing well (rich area, raised by 2 educators, no surprise there).

My sister used to homeschool her 4, so no big change, except this past year, 2 of 4 decided they wanted to do "real" school. They like it as a change up from homeschooling, and are doing well (again, no surprise, Dad is an educator and my sister has been homeschooling the oldest since birth, over 10 years, and busts her butt doing it).

[Jakus]

I am not a teacher, but I do have a kindergartener and third grader going through a hybrid system now.

Our days have been shorted to 9am to 3pm to allow temp screening at bus stops. Classes split into group a (tues, wed in person) and group b (thurs, fri in person). I would defiantly say this system is going to widen the gap between students who excel and those that struggle. A students home life, parental involvement, and quality of internet are even more important now than ever. I have heard that New Mexico was seeing online attendance is the 90% range in Albuquerque, but in the 50% range in the more rural parts of the state with spottier internet service.

My third grader is doing ok. His work always gets done, but there is an objective difference in his testing scores when he’s home versus at school. I really wish his teacher would share her schedule and lesson plans with us so that we could make sure he is focused and has quiet when testing. Right now I have zero visibility as to what he is doing when.

My kindergartener is also do ok, but at that age range they are missing a ton of socialization that can’t really be duplicated online. His teacher is much younger than my third graders teacher. The kindergarten teacher has done a fantastic job of building take home binders with schedules and assignments. I’m having to manage the kindergartener more, but as least I have some visibility.

Our teachers are getting worn out. Chasing kids down in person and online. Being IT for a dozen chromebooks. The ever changing state guidelines. We may see record retirements at the end of the school year.

Which brings me to the state...
Directed schools to purchase masks. A month later, buy different masks
Elementary schools opened initially at 5:1 students to teachers, daycares allowed to open with no capacity restrictions
Directed schools to increase to 50% in person learning. Made our school split a grade of 5 kids into a group a of 3 kids and a group b of 2 kids.
Directed schools to purchase MERV 13 filters for their HVAC systems two days before reopening. Our school has no air conditioning. Hot water radiators in each classroom

I think our governor is too busy shopping for new pantsuits and jewelry for her cabinet position in a Biden administration to be bothered with the details of actual governance.

[LittleLebowski]

What I’m observing is that without a lot of parental involvement, this just doesn’t work. And that is to the lower standards that have been set.

[Welder]

What I’m observing is that without a lot of parental involvement, this just doesn’t work.

Sounds like the results of homeschooling that I'm familiar with. It can produce real winners OR real losers, and much depends on the parents.

[breakingtime91]

What I’m observing is that without a lot of parental involvement, this just doesn’t work. And that is to the lower standards that have been set.

Some parents are the worst part of the job. It is hard as a father for me to keep my cool sometimes.