FIX ONLINE LEARNING
Our country’s public schools engaged in a massive experiment last spring: moving classes online with short notice, little preparation — and predictably disastrous results.
To be sure, the pandemic didn’t allow much time to prepare. But just as we failed to prepare for the pandemic despite decades of warnings, we also failed to prepare to the digital education transition already underway for years.
This fall, the stakes are even higher.
In many communities, private schools are resuming in-person classes even as public schools are still online-only or “hybrid.” With the pandemic’s Third Wave now surging, distance education will remain the only option for millions of public school students. The “old normal” may never return, but there is still no plan for the “new normal.”
In short, education needs far-reaching transitions in curricula, teaching methods and use of technology to bring it into the digital age. Most policymakers, administrators, teachers and parents came of age in the era of lectures, not laptops, and have little insight into the Instagram world that dominates Generation Z’s attention spans.
Survey after survey finds that administrators, teachers, students and parents all felt unprepared for the transition to distance education this spring. And while the summer break offered a chance to regroup and retrain, 42% of districts wasted that opportunity entirely by not offering teachers any professional development to ensure they were better prepared for the fall. Talk about dropping the ball.
Most parents — especially those in single-parent homes — don’t have the digital training or bandwidth to help with in-home learning. And students find online education far less compelling than, say, their social media feeds.
Computers are increasingly inexpensive — but shockingly absent in many households with students. As many as one in four low-income families don’t have home computers. Many districts are stepping up to and trying to help fill this gap, but an unprecedented nationwide laptop shortages are leaving an estimated 5 million students in the cold.
Illiteracy still soars at 14 percent nationwide. A full 75 percent of eighth-graders are reported to have insufficient 21st-century digital skills. We need a cultural change that demands — and achieves — universal literacy, numeracy and digital competence.
Broadband connectivity is a critical piece of the puzzle as well. While almost 10 million students started the pandemic without residential broadband, the crisis has birthed breakthrough models to get everyone connected. Many major broadband providers have expanded longstanding programs to offer discounted service at $10 a month to low-income families.
And cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, Des Moines, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., are lighting a torch instead of cursing the darkness by partnering with broadband providers to get every non-adopting household in those school districts connected — all at no cost to families.
Federal legislation can help too. The federal CARES Act, for instance, appropriated $14 billion this spring for computers, digital skills training, broadband connections and better online curricula. But additional stimulus funding — including an emergency broadband benefit to help connect students whose school districts haven’t yet followed Chicago and Philadelphia’s lead — is desperately needed.
We need universal literacy, numeracy and digital competence.
But most of all, we need to promote cultural change in our communities — engaging students’ minds and curiosities in online learning. Nothing will work unless students willfully engage from home. And that requires a redoubled effort — especially in low-income communities — to understand why so many check out and what it will take to stimulate a love of learning.
Ultimately, education is more about personal interaction with inspiring adults than federal aid. This starts with parents who we need to empower with more resources — including digital skills training — so they are better equipped to support their kids’ learning from home.
We need massive rethinking of the culture of education to turn it into a joyous and wondrous experience for students and their parents — not a trudge through unfamiliar online, impersonal apps.
One hundred years ago, America accomplished universal access to high school, electrification and telephone service. A century later, we need to apply this same can-do spirit to revitalizing public education, both during this crisis and afterwards.
That’s the only way we’ll ever build a truly inclusive society — one in which every student has equal opportunity, and all are fully prepared to thrive in a future of fierce global competition.
Duncan