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Distance Learning During The Coronavirus Pandemic: Equity And Access Questions For School Leaders

This article is more than 4 years old.

No Child Left Behind. Every Student Student Succeeds. Race to the Top. Regardless of the names policy makers put behind national education initiatives over the last twenty years, the outcomes have been the same. Children are regularly left behind. Every student does not succeed (many actually lack a legit opportunity to do so). And when it comes to the educational equity race, the ever-elusive finish line makes it feel like we are not on a track, but on a treadmill.

The coronavirus pandemic is revealing new layers of inequity that may end up setting us back even further. Education leaders are tackling the unexpected challenge of providing distance learning as the primary mode of instruction for weeks, months, and possibly the remainder of the school year. How can school systems that struggle to deliver equitable results in a standard brick and mortar setting overcome the added challenges inherent in distance learning?

Some districts have answered this question by deciding not to provide any learning, period. The legal obligations here are admittedly complex. Once school systems commit to provide any instruction, they are legally obligated to meet the needs of students with special needs. School closures across the country have also brought to shined a bright light on the enormous role schools play in our children’s safety net. The nation’s public schools serve 1.3 million homeless students. They serve almost 30 million children who rely on schools for breakfast and lunch. Understandably, requiring students to have the technological resources and support at home needed for effective distance learning programs to work is a challenging legal obligation.

But what about the moral obligation schools have to give all children a real opportunity to learn? That does not go away because doing so is complicated. Fortunately, this challenge can also be a tremendous opportunity. Plato proclaimed that “necessity is the mother of innovation.” Sometime later, 2Pac spoke of the necessity of divergent thinking when “trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.” With this innovative spirit in mind, there are two questions education leaders can ask to tackle to address the equity issues presented by this transition to distance learning.

1. What does successful distance learning look like?

With Texas and Washington cancelling their high stakes state assessments and many states likely to follow, there is a real question of what the purpose of distance learning should be. In normal circumstances, students would know if they were doing “good” in schools based on their in-class test and report card grades, standardized test results, and internal benchmarks schools use to measure their academic progress.

These are not normal circumstances. Some working families are managing the double-whammy of figuring out how to work remotely and how to be brand new home school parents. Some families are economically impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and are rightfully prioritizing their financial survival. Leaders should accept the reality that digitized math worksheets are probably not a priority for all students.

But it is still important to have a clear definition of what successful distance learning should look like. To define success, presume that every single student has the necessary technology, time, motivation, and support to participate in distance learning. Then, consider how success would be measured if standardized exams did not exist. As part of my work with educators, I have regularly asked what they would do if they had a magic wand to reimagine education. Their most popular answer aligns closely with what success would look like in today’s digital context: giving every child their own independent learning goals and equipping them the tools and resources they need to meet these goals.

Schools today have no shortage of data showing how children are achieving academically. Students’ most recent data would therefore be an important piece of setting academic goals for distance learning. Teachers working to help students achieve their goals may struggle in the distance learning environment. But the shared reality of the in-person and the distance learning contexts is that teaching is much less important than focusing on whether and how students are learning. There are countless edtech apps that can help educators gather this information in a distance learning environment. The greatest app of all? The human one: teachers providing one-on-one assistance to students who need help in live or asynchronous settings. Distance learning has the strategic advantage of making it easier in some cases for teachers to pinpoint specific academic struggles.

There is also no longer a need to limit success to the metrics available in standardized exams. Can your distance learning platform allow for collaboration that helps you measure the extent to which students are learning to communicate listen to understand, speak to be understood, and disagree without being disagreeable? Can it create opportunities for students to be the change they’ve been waiting for, creating solutions to real-world challenges that have an impact today? Can you track how students are getting a head start on “adulting” by learning to do household tasks?

From a school-wide accountability standpoint, school success can also go beyond normal student achievement metrics. Schools are now getting a much clearer picture of how our students’ families can play a greater hands-on role in their children’s academic success. Instead of asking them to lead bake sales or volunteer for the school carnival, education leaders could have been finding ways to connect parents directly to academics. Measure how parents feel about having a much greater personal connection and understanding of what it takes for their children to succeed. Measure how impactful your school counselor is when it comes to helping students manage social emotional challenges. Think about how you can measure the gains in physical health for students physically able to participate in physical education activities at home. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to reimagine success by broadening typical metrics of what educational success means for children.

2. How do you make distance learning accessible and equitable for all students?

The presumption of every single student having the necessary technology, time, motivation, and support to participate in distance learning is simply not real-life. Rural and low-income communities have less access to broadband internet access than their urban, suburban, and more affluent counterparts. But what if education leaders had the power to close this gap? What would it take to ensure that 100% of students had access to distance learning?

Internet providers across the country like Comcast, and and Cox Communications are making internet access available for 30 or more days for free for low-income families with a K-12 student in the household. Charter Communications is similarly making internet access free for 60 days for any family with a K-12 or college student in the household. Maintaining connectivity is important enough of a priority for leaders to create more formal, long-term versions of these public-private partnerships to extend well-beyond the current crisis we are in. Getting devices in the hands of every K-12 student may be more challenging. But with districts across the country increasingly moving towards providing devices for each child, the prospect of ensuring every child has a device at home is far from impossible.

Equity is a lot harder than access. Achieving equity in distance learning requires leaders to focus on student populations who often already have reduced opportunities for academic success in our traditional in-person education model. Our current model has struggled to effectively serve students with special needs, English Language Learners (ELL), homeless and migrant students, students who are academically behind their peers, Black, Latinx, and Native American students and students living in poverty. But no one suggests that we simply stop teaching these students just because we are not doing it well it enough.

Distance learning can be delivered equitably in a way that goes beyond every child receiving nothing at all. Last week, the United States Department of Education (DOE) clarified that schools must “make every effort” to provide special education according to a child’s individualized education program or to provide a free and appropriate public education per the child’s plan under Section 504. The DOE also noted that “exceptional circumstances” can affect how schools provide services. This means that although the law is clear about students with disabilities having equal access to the same educational opportunities as all children, these opportunities are to be provided “to the greatest extent possible.” Schools looking to figure this out should work closely with the families of students with special needs to revise their plans for the realities and challenges of distance learning.

Another equity issue is that parents may not be able to help children with their schoolwork at home. This presents another crucial challenge, especially for students in primary elementary grades. Consider how the job responsibilities of staff members can be modified to meet this need. Reallocate resources to ensure someone is able to communicate with, train, and support parents who need to support their children in the distance learning environment. Ensure you have the personnel to assist with this using the home languages spoken by parents. Talk to parents to figure out the best ways to support them in this.

There is no exhaustive how-to list for equity because equity work is never quite finished. The key to providing equitable distance learning opportunities for all students is to recognize what this looks like for each student’s unique situation. This transition from “all children” to “each child” is probably a heavier lift than the shift to distance learning. But by recognizing equity as an overarching aspect of every decision school system leaders are making as part of this transition, valuable lessons will be learned that will help schools serve students more effectively in this new distance learning environment.

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