Public schools after the pandemic
How will K- 12 education change post- pandemic? I am, as most lifelong teachers, an optimist. I believe deeply in the capacity of human beings to adapt and change and grow in the face of adverse situations. We cannot view this pandemic only as a tragedy to be survived, we must see it as an opportunity to take stock.
Fear, suffering and the lack of control of our circumstances all force us to strip away all that is inconsequential, and realize what is crucial. For example, the first broadly applied decision made after schools were closed? No testing. For the last two decades, public education has defined itself by testing, defined itself by promoting measurable results. Yet, educators have always known that while data on performance is important, children need to be treasured, not measured. Testing, as teachers have understood for years, provides minimal insight into how best to educate children. Perhaps, postpandemic, we will recalibrate our reliance on testing and redefine our norms of effectiveness.
If this pandemic highlighted anything about our education system, it is that we must no longer abide the deep inequalities that exist in public education. While some school systems moved immediately to distance learning opportunities, many others struggled with more harrowing concerns over how the basic needs of children, such as adequate nutrition, would be met. If you are poor, if you are hungry, if you have experienced trauma, if you are living on the edges of society
— education must prioritize these serious issues of the least among us. We must work to provide the same opportunities for children of poverty as for our more privileged children; the ones with internet access, the ones with food in the pantry, the ones with health care. The glaring truth of inequity in light of this pandemic cannot be ignored. We do not have equal education for all — we never have. But in the reset that will come after the pandemic, we can indeed make this a priority. Any changes that arise out of the response to the pandemic should be, must be, framed to address the equity issue.
School days themselves will be forever changed. There will be a blend of distance learning and in- school classrooms. Perhaps we will realize the structured days of 8: 30 to 3: 30 do not make much sense for all learners or working parents. Perhaps there will be rolling schedules of class times with fewer children in each building at any one time, in order to promote social distancing. This will be costly, and require considerable restructuring to include more opportunities for nontraditional and virtual learning. Perhaps we will begin to truly value experiential learning; young adults might work, or do volunteer work halfdays, then go to school halfdays, allowing for fewer numbers in the building at any one time.
Now is the time to put more health clinics in schools; we will need these to test for viruses, but we can also then support the health of impoverished children. We could begin to maintain in- school food pantries, where parents may stock up for the weekend. Why not open buildings for longer days, with study rooms where internet access and quiet spots to learn are available for students who do not have these luxuries at home? We will need longer school days so that we can stagger numbers in the buildings and provide social distancing, but we could also, with such a schedule, provide alternating child care. Schools could become our community- based hubs for addressing childhood poverty.
Post- pandemic, I hope we finally recognize that teaching is complex, difficult, fraught with issues that go well beyond instruction. Parents who are spending many more hours with their children might now understand how hard it is to simply keep young minds engaged and focused and motivated. Teachers know how to do this, but it is the other issues that keep them up at night. My hope, post- pandemic, is that all of us realize that many public schools, like hospitals at this moment, have been overloaded for years; understaffed and overburdened with complexities they are not prepared or trained to address. Public schools, especially urban and rural schools, have indeed been performing triage for years. And collapsing under the weight.
We have this unprecedented opportunity, in this not-knowing time of what lies ahead, to shift the trajectory of public education. I truly cannot know how things will change, but my deepest hope is that whatever transformation takes place, it addresses more than a response to this virus, and finally grapples with the long- term vulnerabilities public education has always had, but can no longer avoid. This pandemic will bring many, many changes to our society; I pray the most enduring will be a change of heart.