U.S. schools face problems stretching far beyond the fall reopening, writes Stanley Litow.
Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesAbout the author: Stanley Litow is a professor at Duke and Columbia universities and a trustee at the State University of New York. He is the co-author of Breaking Barriers: How P-Tech Schools Create a Pathway From High School to College to Career.
As the vaccine rollout began and Covid cases dropped dramatically, parents and employers exhaled. School districts around the U.S. planned for smooth, in-person classes this fall. Unfortunately, a triple whammy of events is now threatening the smooth and safe school reopening so many of us were expecting.
First, disinformation and blatant lies drove down the numbers of those taking the vaccine, preventing the safety that vaccination rates over 70% would have given us. Second, the unexpected Delta variant has caused Covid cases to spike, setting the clock back on infections to crisis levels. And third, massive political opposition to mask-wearing has limited one of the most effective ways to make our schools and communities safe. We need our leaders to work diligently and effectively to address these daunting, high-profile challenges.
Vaccination needs to be mandatory and masking needs to be treated just as seriously.
And yet, this only gets us to first base.
To cross home plate, we’ll have to address broader and deeper education issues that are also at crisis levels. Without taking our eyes off the triple threat outlined above, we must make sure that students are able not only to be marked present by safely attending school in-person, but when there, they have to learn, and at higher levels to address the education losses caused by the pandemic. A recent McKinsey study shows that as a result of Covid students are behind by four to five months on average in both math and reading.
The crisis goes beyond academics. We must also make sure our schools address the educational, social, and emotional challenges that Covid has dramatically amplified. Student rates of anxiety and depression affecting their emotional health have doubled during the pandemic. If both the learning loss and spike in mental health issues continue unabated, we can expect higher dropout rates, increases in the number of students in special education, lower graduation rates, and rising costs for the social safety net. These problems could cloud our economic and social future far beyond the pandemic. This is a totally unacceptable and clearly avoidable risk. But instead of wringing our hands we need to act, quickly, to make sure our schools have a clear focus on how to reverse both of these trends
Of course, there isn’t only one thing we will need to do. We need to blunt the teacher recruitment and retention challenge with competitive compensation and investment in professional development, for our teachers and our principals too. And we need to work to make our faculty as diverse as our student population. We need to devote attention to significantly improving remote instruction not as a substitute for in-person learning but as a way of extending the benefit of classroom instruction. And we need to break down the barriers that stand in the way of bringing our most innovative school models, like P-Tech to scale. But there is one effort that needs particular attention.
This past summer in New York City, students had the opportunity to attend an enriched summer program. “Summer Rising” offered morning instruction five days a week. In the afternoon, students had an opportunity for social interaction in programs provided by nonprofit organizations. Over 200,000 students attended. While hastily put together, the concept is worth significant upgrading and then emulating with input from parents and teachers across the U.S. These programs could provide extended learning to address gaps in math, english, and science, and on Saturdays and holidays, as well as the summer. We could offer in excess of 100 hours of extended learning time for students, coupled with another 100 hours offering students the opportunity to build their social skills in other areas, resolving mental health issues. The cost of New York City’s program this summer was met with stimulus funds provided by the Biden administration, but were they extended this would provide one part of an insurance policy against learning loss and the escalation of mental-health and social-services problems.
Creative use of the summer has been a component of “summer-bridge” programs that focus on the season as an opportunity to better prepare some middle-school graduates for high school, and some high school graduates for college. In P-Tech schools, creative use of a summer-bridge program, along with mentoring and other support has effectively increased performance and avoided costly remediation. But creative uses of the summer can’t be an opportunity only for some. We need to move from some, to all.
We should also ramp up the engagement of nonprofit organizations after school, during the school week. They can provide extended learning in academic areas, as well as access to arts, sports, technology, and supportive services that address students’ social needs connected to mental health. Nonprofit organizations skilled in these areas can also locate in vacant space in schools to offer assistance not only to students but at the end of the day to their parents as well.
An effort like this faces challenges. First is to ensure that the funding is in place. A combination of consistent federal and state financial support is essential. Second is to bring all the key stakeholders together to effectively design, plan, and schedule these services in an integrated fashion. Teachers, parents, community organizations, and yes students, need to be at the table to effectively put these important services in place, not as an add-on, but as part of each and every school day. Investment in training and ongoing support for instructional staff and their nonprofit partners is important, as is an evaluation system to provide the public with accountability.
A successful, safe, and healthy school opening is critical as we hopefully move beyond Covid. It will require real leadership. But we must understand that these problems stretch far beyond this fall. The broader crisis of learning loss and mental health problems if unaddressed could overshadow the short-term need for a safe school reopening. We risk leaving all Americans paying the bills for our neglect for a decade or more. Intelligent investment in education takes hard work. While it may be costly, the cost of doing nothing is far greater.
Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback to ideas@barrons.com.
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School Reopenings This Fall Are Facing a Triple Threat from the Pandemic - Barron's
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