Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Professor of Bisiness Journalism at Baruch College of the Coty University of New York.
Nearly all of the 20 largest US school districts will offer online schooling options this fall. Over half of them will be offering more full-time virtual school programs than they did before the pandemic. The trend seems likely to continue or accelerate, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat.
That’s a problem. School closings over the last two years have inflicted severe educational and emotional damage on American students. Schools should now be focusing on creative ways to fill classrooms, socialize kids and convey the joy of collaborative learning — not on providing opportunities to stay home.
Historically, various forces have pushed for online education — not all of them focused on improving education. These include: the quest for cheaper, more efficient modes of schooling; the push to limit the influence of teachers unions by concentrating virtual teachers in non-union states; and a variety of medical and social factors that lead some students and families to prefer online learning.
Since the pandemic, some virtual programs have reasonably stressed medically fragile students. But others are seizing on online education in a rushed effort to shore up public-school enrollments, which plummeted in some cities. The prevalence of these programs in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Dallas and New York is particularly worrying, as they target poor and minority students who are likely to be particularly ill-served by online school options.
A new study shows that while young children, especially, are bouncing back from the pandemic-era academic doldrums, the gap between high-poverty and low-poverty schools remains greater than it was pre-pandemic.
Research, where it exists, shows consistently worse educational outcomes for online schools than for traditional public schools.
Students in cyber schools do their coursework mostly from home and over the internet, with teachers often located in different states and time zones. There is little comprehensive information about the curricula, student-teacher ratios, how much actual teaching occurs, or what if any academic supports are provided by the schools.The adverse impact of the pandemic on the emotional well-being and social skills of children — one-third of school leaders reported a surge in disruptive student behavior during the past school year — is a cautionary lesson for online learning.
Graham Browne, the founder of Forte Preparatory Academy, an independent charter school in Queens, New York, said recently that he saw a sharp increase in “aggressive or threatening” behavior, especially among 6th graders who spent much of the previous two years online.
During a recent multi-day field trip to a camp run by the Fresh Air Fund, Browne said he noticed that during team-building exercises, such as figuring out how to carry a large object over a low bridge, students resorted to screaming at each other. Previously, he said, they would have worked out a strategy for maneuvering the object together.
Equally concerning, when the school offered an online option during the 2020-2021 school year, Browne found that close to half of his highest achieving 8th graders — those taking algebra rather than pre-algebra — selected the option because it gave them the flexibility to pursue academics at their own pace.
“Our school is small, so having such a large portion of high-performing students out of the building has an impact on peer tutoring, student morale, and a culture of team building that we emphasize at school,” Browne said.
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The most immediate threat, however, comes from the private sector and especially from for-profit virtual charter schools, which are of notoriously poor quality; just 30% met state school-performance standards, compared with 53% for district-run virtual schools before the pandemic. These schools, which spend heavily on advertising, boomed during school lockdowns, when traditional schools were struggling to offer online instruction. At the nation’s largest for-profit network, enrollment grew 45% to 157,000 students during the past year.
What kids need most are robust in-person learning opportunities and the chance to experiment. Schools also need to maintain reassuring safety protocols as Covid-19 variants continue to spread.
This is the time for schools to adopt engaging learning approaches, such those of a high-poverty school in the Bronx that uses the Bronx River as a science laboratory, and of the Leander, Texas school district that turned over the development of an anti-bullying strategy to high school students, in the process building young leaders.
Some of these projects could be adapted to a hybrid format by giving students the option to do some work remotely, while also emphasizing in-person collaboration.
What makes no educational sense is the rush to embrace online schooling. Experience has demonstrated its severe disadvantages. State oversight isn’t strong enough to mitigate them. Before barreling ahead, research should be financed and conducted by independent scholars to pinpoint the potential benefits. Until that happens, schools should do everything they can to keep kids in classrooms.
It’s been pretty amusing watching this blog morph from “schools should never ever ever reopen for in person learning until they are 100% safe” under Trump to “online schooling is bad and kids need to be back in school in person right now” under Biden.
I’m inclined to agree that online schooling is bad, but I’m also inclined to notice that COVID is once again spiking with yet another new variant. Having had COVID myself last year due to one or both of my kids bringing it home from school, I can say I’m not inclined to repeat the experience. Especially since we don’t know what the long term effects of COVID are, especially with repeated exposure. There are all kinds of reports of increases in heart and lung conditions among otherwise healthy young people since the pandemic began, along with other effects of long COVID
And there’s a potential whole new pandemic arising with monkeypox (including some cases in children) which is even more damaging than COVID. If you haven’t already, I encourage you google the effects of monkeypox and take a look at the lesions it causes, not to mention the 6 to 10 week recovery time and the excruciating pain.
Now, yes, we know enough that theoretically we could make schools safe(ish). We could mandate masks. We could reduce class sizes to allow for greater distancing. We could conduct more classes outside and/or improve ventilation inside. But what do you think the chances are of those things happening across the country? Especially in red states? Especially in poor districts? Those kids we’re so concerned about “learning loss” (as measured by standardized tests!) are also the ones least likely to have small class sizes or adequate ventilation. They’re also the kids most likely to be living in crowded conditions with more vulnerable people that they could infect if they bring home COVID (or monkeypox).
I personally salute schools that provide both in person and online options. I don’t generally think parents should have complete control over their child’s education, but I do think parents are in the best position to know whether online or in-person is best for their child and their family. Yes, I share the concern about online options being contracted out to separate charter/virtual schools and teachers teaching hundreds of kids possibly not even in their same state, but how hard can it be to put all classes on Zoom/Teams/Google so that kids can join in person or remotely for the same class?
“how hard can it be to put all classes on Zoom/Teams/Google so that kids can join in person or remotely for the same class?”
How hard? Do you have a clue?
It is actually much easier — and a better experience — to have 100% of the students remote on their computer with a teacher than to have half looking at the teacher in the classroom and the other half remote. Do the kids in the classroom hear remote kids’ disembodied voices? Does the teacher? Is there a huge screen in the front where the zoom kids faces are there? Is there a moving camera that focuses on the kids in the classroom if they talk?
Or do the kids in the classroom end up looking at their own laptops anyway via zoom?
A relative taught a hybrid zoom math class at a small college. He was a math teacher with decades of classroom experience who was also extremely adept at computers, technology and the hardware/construction/wiring. (i.e. he happened to also be knowledgeable in how to build houses from plumbing to electricity to support beams and flooring). He spent days setting up his classroom to make it work in the best possible way. And it was still far from ideal.
To be clear, I do think it is good for school districts to offer THEIR OWN remote options rather than have some for-profit on-line education. But those remote options would have to be a class of remote only and it would be far more complex than the “easy” solution portrayed here by someone who doesn’t seem to have ever taught a group of 7 year olds where half were in the classroom and the other half at home — which is hard enough with college students!
Correct, nyspsp, many here attested to the near-impossibility of running both in-person and remote students interactively from the same classroom. Someone here (was it TOW?) reported having his computer-savviest kids sit up front near his laptop to alert teacher to questions/ comments from the simultaneous remote group—then it’s “talk amongst yourselves” for the in-persons while teacher addresses the at-homes.
During hybrid, our district tried something a little different that may have been an improvement, as there was little flack from parents. The main part of schoolday was divided into a.m.—8:30-12:30—for all (1/2 in person, half at home). But the camera was trained on the whiteboard/ teacher, and at-home children could only listen, not participate. Part 2 of day was online for all, from 1:30-2:45. The kids who’d been in-person earlier were working on a related hw assnt & could ask Q’s, but the main focus was a Q&A session for those who’d been at home earlier. It sounds better than simultaneous/ interactive, but I expect it may have pushed teachers toward lecture format (?)
It wasn’t me, but I did have kids join virtually a lot in the last 2 years. Better than nothing when they were quarantined, but a HUGE pain for me
“This blog” never expressed a view about whether schools should close or be open.
Different readers had different opinions.
As I recall, I posted many articles expressing views, including one by Carol Burris in favor of keeping schools open. I did not consider myself wise enough to tell the nation what was right or wrong.
If it very unfortunate that the issue was politicized by rightwing extremists who opposed all school closing and all mask mandates.
I do think that it is fair to say that orthodox posters hear argued that schools should remain closed as long as there is any risk of infection from Covid-19. Any person holding opinions to the contrary were vilified.
TE,
Readers expressed their views about whether schools should be open or closed. The blog, that is, me, did not have a point of view.
I agree that many school districts need to offer an online option if they don’t already have one. Gabor’s article seems alarmist,, and provides a mishmash of conflicting data to support the thesis. Things that stuck out to me:
1. Dallas’ option is for 350 interested 3rd-8th graders. Their 2018-19 enrollment is at wiki: 350 = 0.5% of the 3rd-8th grade enrollment.
2.Philadelphia, omg. They’ve had a huge online charter academy alternative forever. 20 yrs ago one of my kids’ gf’s relocated there. The local nbhd school was too rough for her & her brother; they did this option [which did include occasional in-person events]. Who knows if it was any good, but obviously nothing new.
3.LAUSD is responding to already-established need (overloaded ind study pgm), is running its own online schools, and is expanding based on project extra spots needed when vaccine mandate goes into effect.
4.Gabor says big-city online option targets poor/ minority students, while suggesting the motive is to claw back enrollment lost during pandemic [about 3%]. We need stats to measure what proportion of the 3% were kids from poor minority nbhds experiencing much higher community spread & more severe illness – could be a large overlap; pandemic not over, & same communities probably leery of child vaccines as well.
4.If the Forte Prep charter academy’s founder doesn’t like the ed results of allowing half his 8th-graders to take the online option, change things up. They have the flexibiity.
“We need stats to measure what . . . ”
Stats do not measure anything. Stats are the result of various assessments, evaluations and judgements supposedly to help us better understand the world around us but do not measure anything.
In general, whenever people feel the urge to use the word “measure” they should substitute the word “gauge” which is much closer to the meaning they intend.
Unless they are referring to an actual measurement (of height, speed, weight, length, volume, temperature, etc)
The good thing about the word gauge is that it can be used for something that can’t be precisely quantified.
So one can gauge whether a student is learning the material without attaching a specific number to their learning.
Or one can “gauge what proportion of the 3% were kids from poor minority nbhds experiencing much higher community spread & more severe ill”
Or, as you suggest, “assess” also works..
But as you have pointed out Diane, people often use the word “measure” to lend an air of scientific credibility to something, often undeserved.
Autocorrect changed what I wrote from Duane to Diane
The words “gauge” and “assess” imply that owns one is doing is “estimating”, which is actually what one IS doing when one refers to statistics. Statistics can be used to estimate the uncertainty of a measurement but they are not measurements in and of themselves.
Thanks, SDP for filling in my thoughts. Excellent.
Sad. . . that so many involved in education don’t understand these very important distinctions in language usage.
Agree, SDP and Duane, “gauge” and “assess” much better than “measure”– in fact, I like “estimate” best.
One silver lining of covid [well not ‘silver’, but something better than brass] is that plenty of parents got to see for themselves what remote pubsch ed looks like, and how it works for their children. From what I’ve read, it seems most were exposed to live zoom-type classes, but also a fair number were exposed to those canned MBE-type programs. And some had a few months of only daily worksheet-packets before online was available, so they got a version of what homeschooling might look like. This should lead to a more informed public.
Considering the national outcry/ complaining over remote ed during pandemic, you might think JQPublic was convinced of the innate superiority of teacher-led, in-person classes. [They sure talked that way!] That would put us way ahead of where we were up until 2019, when communities could be hoodwinked into charters or publics with a major component of laptop-delivered canned instruction.
But I’m thinking that was just a baby, incremental step that only applies to parents paying close attention. Some parents have learned they have a kid/ kids who blossom when given the opportunity to make their own schedules and study independently. They will be demanding to be included with whatever online program is provided to disabled kids who could never attend in-person; those programs can be expanded according to demand. Some parents have gained appreciation for what teachers do.
But, gotta say, a lot of the parent outcry is not focused on the distinction between in-person vs online, quality-/ learning-wise. Their animus seems primarily motivated by the inconvenience/ economic distress of being robbed of daily pubsch care-taker 8am-3pm. They talk a good talk: in-person is high-quality/ remote is garbage; we wuz robbed by teachers unions, etc. But it was really just anger about the disruption of covid, blamed on govt officials who required safety protocols to cut back on viral spread. Their blame often extends even to inventing issues with pedagogy/ curriculum/ teachers in general (as viewed online). Those people (and they are many) will continue to be fooled when their districts offer cheap-crap laptop-learning “in-person,” and will care less about teachers being replaced by paras/ monitors, provided it keeps school-spending low.
I am SO very tired of kids coming back from virtual “school” so behind. This predates COVID. Even when students are only gone a term, it seems they have lost more than that. I have dozens of stories.
Online instruction should be used specifically for chronically disruptive students who are on short-term or long-term suspensions or who have been expelled for the school year.
If internet access is limited in a district. an online learning center physically separated far from their school could be established. A progressive demerit system should be implemented so that any student has multiple opportunities to correct their behaviors before being sent to online learning.
After several years in schools in person and with tech, and paying attention to clear achievement data, online is no replacement for in person at all. Thank you!