Remote learning verdict

Distance learning in Los Angeles schools is definitely working better than it did last spring, but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Generally speaking, remote classes are still an abysmal operation in which most students lose out, and the ones with the greatest need lose most.

That assessment comes not from school administrators or researchers but from the best source of all: LA teachers themselves, the people who are trying to transmit skills and knowledge while giving students some sense of normality in a world gone haywire. Their sentiments are especially noteworthy considering that their labor union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has been the organization most concerned about the dangers of returning to physical classrooms.

The survey was commissioned by USC’s Rossier School of Education as well as Educators for Excellence, a teacher-led, reform-oriented organization whose financial backers include groups that teachers unions find unsympathetic, such as the Broad Foundation. But the survey of 502 teachers in both district-run and charter schools is large and well designed, so it’s fair to assume that it accurately captured the wider views among teachers. It was conducted by a well-known polling firm.

According to the survey, more than 90 percent of teachers say that students aren’t engaged in their lessons, largely because of the environmental barriers to learning from home. Many students lack the high-speed Internet they need, as well as a quiet place to do their schoolwork; they often don’t have an adult at home who can help when they’re stuck.

The teachers feel that neither they nor their most vulnerable students, such as those who are homeless or face language barriers, are getting the support or guidance they need from their schools.

The pandemic has the upper hand at the moment, but there is no better time for figuring out how to keep children and teenagers from having to pay the price in the long run.