Return to in-person learning comes with racial disparities
All around Lourdes Flores there are signs that her border town of Mission is returning to pre-pandemic life: More restrictions have been lifted; she’s no longer working strictly from home; and most people in her household have been vaccinated.
However, Flores is slow to embrace the idea that her daughter, Jazmin, will return to in-person learning for her sophomore year this fall in the La Joya Independent School District.
“If a choice is given, then I’ll keep her at home for as long as I can until I know that it’s really safe to be out there,” Flores said, adding that she worries current COVID-19 infection rates don’t paint an accurate picture of the virus’s spread, as her daughter’s district plans to move ahead with a full return to campus.
Remote learning won’t be an option for many parents in the fall, as the Texas Education Agency pushes districts toward returning to in-person learning, citing data showing that it leads to better learning outcomes. The agency has announced that state funding for remote-only options won’t be available for the upcoming school year, prompting many districts to announce a return to 100 percent in-person instruc
tion.
Despite this, the return to inperson learning is not a simple transition for some parents — particularly parents of students of color — after a year in which they say their children reaped some benefits from remote-only learning.
When districts gave parents a choice between in-person and remote classes during the past year, according to data from the Texas Education Agency, students of color in Texas returned to in-person learning at lower rates than their white counterparts.
As of January, about 56 percent of Texas students returned to oncampus instruction, including 75 percent of white students, about 53 percent of Black students, 49 percent of Hispanic students and 31 percent of Asian students.
In an emailed statement, the TEA cited “COVID-19’s disproportionate economic and public health effect on communities of color” as a reason for the lower inperson attendance and engagement rates among students of color.
Experts say it’s necessary to consider circumstances that could lead to such rates: Students may live in a multigenerational household and worry about infecting family members, or they could be tasked with extra responsibilities during the pandemic — such as taking care of siblings or supplementing family income — that make remote learning more conducive to their needs.
“There’s mostly quite a bit of fear and economic uncertainty,” said Hector Bojorquez, director of operations and educational practice at the Intercultural Development Research Association, a nonprofit that seeks to ensure equal opportunities for children in public education.
The disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on communities of color can also present a challenge for parents in deciding to let their child return to in-person learning, said Leann Smith, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s Department of Educational Psychology.
“We know that there were higher rates of COVID-related illnesses and death in those communities, so we are then putting the burden on parents for the most part to decide whether or not they want to risk further exposing their own community or their family to this virus,” Smith said.
Throughout the pandemic, a majority of coronavirus-related deaths in the state have been among Hispanic and Black Texans, who together make up a little more than 50 percent of the state’s population. As of late June, about 26 percent of Black Texans and about 32 percent of Hispanic Texans have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 38 percent of white Texans, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Learning loss during the pandemic has surpassed the usual decline associated with the summer months, according to the TEA. Between March 2020 and September 2020, students have lost an average of almost six months of learning, according to the TEA, with virtual learning students being “disproportionately affected.”
Newly released standardized test results also show the percentage of remote learning students who met grade level expectations dropped significantly this past year, especially in math and reading.
For example, districts in which a quarter or more of the students were learning virtually saw a 32 percent drop in mathematics performance from 2019 to 2021. However, in districts where less than a quarter learned virtually, performance dropped by only 9 percent.
“Thankfully, from early on, Texas prioritized the availability of inperson instruction during this tremendously difficult year,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in a statement. “When students come into Texas public schools, they are well-served by Texas educators — a fact that these scores confirm.”
In the plan the TEA submitted to the U.S. Department of Education that details how it intends to use federal stimulus funds from the American Rescue Plan, the agency said that “African American and Hispanic students in Texas have experienced, in general, more lost instructional time due to absenteeism, lower student engagement, and have engaged more in remote learning than their peers of other races/ethnicities.”
The TEA said it “is actively working to address pandemic-induced learning loss” and is overseeing the distribution of $18 billion in federal stimulus funds for public schools. In April, the state released $11.2 billion of the federal stimulus funds for public schools that were allocated to the state through the American Rescue Plan.
The recently released money requires that districts reserve 20 percent of their funds to address learning loss through strategies such as summer programs, afterschool programs or extending the school year.