City eyes ‘COVID gap’ in students’ learning

City officials acknowledged on Thursday that they were not sure of the toll that remote education has taken on schoolkids and said they were trying to figure out the level of learning loss.

“It’s time to really reckon with a challenge that we’re seeing very, very clearly, which is the way that COVID has stood in the way of our kids’ education,” Mayor de Blasio said at a City Hall press briefing alongside Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.

“The fact that there has been learning loss and there still will be learning loss ahead that we have to compensate for and then overcome. In fact, clearly, there will be a COVID achievement gap, and we have to close that COVID achievement gap.”

But critics argued that the city Department of Education would have had a better handle on the scope of the educational damage if it had focused more on the quality of remote learning this year.

“People have to remember that most students haven’t had in-person classes in well over a year,” a Queens principal said. “The fact is we have very little idea of where these kids stand, and it’s going to be difficult to do that with a few diagnostic tests. The focus should have been on remote learning a lot earlier.”

Hizzoner laid out a bare-bones framework for a “2021 student achievement plan” that includes individual “assessments” of students.

“We want to use assessments that help teachers to serve children and that give a clearer baseline of where kids are at especially after all the disruption they’ve been through,” de Blasio said, noting that “clearly, this is not high-stakes testing.”

Carranza added that the upcoming student assessments are not to be confused with testing.

“We’re not talking about testing,” he said. “What we’re talking about is formative assessment.”

“We want to take a snapshot at regular points so that the information that is gathered, teachers can use that information to make decisions about where they need to intercede in the learning of the student,” Carranza said.

The city’s plan also calls for “increasing high-quality digital curriculum” in schools, launching a “onestop digital learning hub,” “deepening professional development,” “expanding ‘parent university’ ” and confronting “the trauma and mental health crisis” that students have faced during the pandemic.

Parent advocate Leonie Haimson blasted the notion that more remote learning would compensate for the impact of remote learning.

“The profound flaws in remote learning suffered by students this year cannot be remediated next year by more online,” she said.

There has been l learning loss and there still will be lear learning loss ahead that tha we have to compensate for and th then overcome. — Mayor de Blasio