Coronavirus and Education
Word on the Beat: Remote Learning
As communities nationwide grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, educators are struggling to provide young people with meaningful opportunities to continue learning even with most public schools now closed. In this installment of Word on the Beat, we look at how digital tools are being put into quick action for K-12 education — and how that’s creating both opportunities and challenges for teachers, students, and families.
Key Resources for Coronavirus Updates
Here are resources for facts, updates and tools on the COVID-19 crisis:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- U.S.
Five Tips for Education Reporters Covering the Coronavirus
Keep Calm and Report On
In any health crisis, the news media is a critical source of information for the public. Education reporters can, and should, play a key role in their newsroom coverage, given that schools are a significant factor in efforts to contain and limit the existing outbreak of the coronavirus.
Big Ideas for Education’s Urgent Challenges
Welcome to the start of a new school year and the 2021 edition of our Big Ideas report.
While returning children to school buildings safely and making the year as normal as possible is driving you and your work, we understand how much more complex your job has become.
The cover of this year’s report and the 10 essays inside reflect this complicated moment and the constellation of emotions we know you’re experiencing: hope, excitement, grief, urgency, trepidation, and determination.
Education Department Investigating Mask Mandate Bans in Five States
The Education Department on Monday announced investigations into five states that have imposed policies prohibiting schools from imposing mask mandates.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said Monday it sent letters to the chief state school officers of Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennesse and Utah informing them of the investigation into whether the policies discriminate against students with disabilities and health vulnerabilities who face a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection.
For Some College Students, Remote Learning Is a Game Changer
Although many college students have struggled with remote learning over the last year, some with disabilities found it to be a lifeline. As the fall semester approaches, those students are pushing for remote accommodations to continue, even as in-person classes resume.
How Schools are Teaching Quarantined Students this Fall
As Illinois schools welcome students back to fully reopened classrooms this month amid another coronavirus surge, educators face a thorny question: How do you teach students who are quarantined by COVID-19?
Read the full story here.
Online Learning Will Continue This Fall. What Do Reporters Need to Know?
Although school districts nationwide are expected to offer full-time, in-person instruction during the 2021-22 academic year, millions of students are poised to stick with online learning, with the number of virtual options growing. This raises a host of important questions for families, communities, and educators.
Watch the Education Writers Association’s timely webinar on remote learning. Experts identified critical questions education reporters should be asking in their local communities and provided some early answers.
Helping Students Learn at Their Own Pace: Why Some Ohio Schools Are Adopting a ‘Mastery’ Approach in Hopes of Closing COVID Learning Gaps
With many students needing academic intervention after the pandemic, school district officials in Columbus and Cleveland, are turning to “mastery” learning as a strategy to catch them up.
The mastery, or “competency” approach lets students learn at their own pace, making sure they fully understand key skills before moving on.
That could be a good fit when students return to school in the fall after making drastically different progress online or in very limited in-person classes.
An Oral History of Early Childhood Educators During the Pandemic
Yessika Magdaleno, owner of a home-based child care program in Orange County, Calif., is a problem-solver by nature. When she opened her program 20 years ago, she attracted families by expanding her hours to nights and weekends to accommodate those with non-traditional work hours.
A Reporter’s Guide to Rethinking Grades Post-Pandemic
Experts explain how COVID-19 disrupted grading practices in schools and what's ahead
As with so many aspects of schooling, the pandemic exposed flaws in traditional grading policies and practices. As the number of Ds and Fs rose, educators altered, froze or suspended grades in an effort to hold students harmless for lack of Internet access and other circumstances beyond their control.
With Schools Reopening Full-Time, What Pandemic-Driven Changes Will Last?
Get 7 story ideas to help you cover K-12 and higher education shifts that may have staying power.
Despite the many hardships the pandemic caused, the COVID-19 disruption also sparked – or in some cases accelerated – changes to K-12 and higher education that leaders say should stick.
The speakers pointed to the power of flexibility, the need to focus energy and resources that will serve the “whole student,” and how increased outreach and new communication strategies with students and families could be transformative during a plenary at the Education Writers Association’s 2021 National Seminar.
COVID At School: Boys Fell Behind More Than Girls. Can They Catch Up?
In Chicago and across the country, there is growing evidence that this year has hit Black and Latino boys harder than other students. Amid rising gun violence, a national reckoning over race, bitter school reopening battles and a deadly virus that took the heaviest toll on Black and Latino communities, the year has tested not only these teens, but also the school systems that have historically failed many of them.
It has severed precarious ties to school, derailed college plans and pried gaping academic disparities even wider.
Rethinking ‘Town & Gown’
How the pandemic is reshaping long-standing relationships among higher ed and local communities (EWA Radio Episode 273)
As both municipal and higher education leaders tried to fend of COVID-19, the two camps sometimes found themselves at cross-purposes when it came to fiscal and public health challenges, reports Sara Hebel, co-founder of Open Campus.
In Chicago’s Poorest High Schools, 20% Of Grades Were Fs
At the height of the pandemic, even when her school discouraged it, Chicago public high school teacher Anna Lane traveled to her students’ homes to stand on porches and listen to their struggles. Using money she helped raise through a mutual aid fund, she often brought groceries or cash assistance so their families could pay their bills.
Pandemic Saps College Enrollment, Counselors Fight Back
Thousands of California high school graduates didn’t go to college last year due to the pandemic. The drop, which mostly affected community colleges, might be temporary, but it showed the need to provide more support for students going from high school to college. A new counseling program in Riverside County aims to do just that.
Read the full story here.
Pandemic Saps College Enrollment, Counselors Fight Back
Thousands of California high school graduates didn’t go to college last year due to the pandemic. The drop, which mostly affected community colleges, might be temporary, but it showed the need to provide more support for students going from high school to college. A new counseling program in Riverside County aims to do just that.
Read the full story here.
Pandemic Saps College Enrollment, Counselors Fight Back
Thousands of California high school graduates didn’t go to college last year due to the pandemic. The drop, which mostly affected community colleges, might be temporary, but it showed the need to provide more support for students going from high school to college. A new counseling program in Riverside County aims to do just that.
Read the full story here.
Will the Pandemic Propel ‘Competency-Based’ Education Into the Mainstream?
Instructional model replaces 'seat-time' requirements with focus on mastery of content, skills
The pandemic forced schools to switch from in-person to remote learning nearly overnight, raising questions about the relevance of “seat time” as a standard measure for earning course credit. Now, as schools move into education recovery mode, an alternative model known as competency-based learning is getting a fresh look and is expected to see more widespread adoption.
How Schools (and Reporters) Can Better Connect With Parents
'Talk to us,' parent organizers urge
The grand experiment with remote instruction in the pandemic hasn’t just impacted teachers and students. It has also changed the relationship of parents to their children’s learning, and provided a firsthand look at the virtual classroom experience.
During a May 4 session at the Education Writers Association’s 2021 National Seminar, parent advocates and researchers explored how the role of families in education may shift, and ways schools and others can support the change.
Click here to download the transcript of the 2021 family engagement session
The participants were:
Are ‘Merit’-based Education Admissions Practices Racist?
Experts outline problems with - and efforts to improve - use of SAT scores, affirmative action, school lotteries.
It is one of the thorniest topics in education: What criteria should be used to fairly determine which students are admitted to America’s “elite” public schools, colleges and universities?
Many top schools have faced criticism in recent decades for not reflecting the nation’s racial and socioeconomic diversity.
#tellEWA Member Stories (Apr. 2-8)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
More school districts are turning to digital surveillance to keep tabs on students during remote learning. That has some families, educators, and privacy experts concerned, reports Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk.
Emily Tate of EdSurge explains why some guidance counselors are taking steps to address their implicit biases, and how that could improve services for students going forward.
Out of School, Out of Work
In 2017, as many as 4.5 million young people—or 11.5 percent of young adults ages 16 to 24—were neither in school nor working, according to the nonprofit Measure of America. By the summer of 2020, the organization estimated, the ranks of these “disconnected” young adults had swelled to 6 million.
Read the full story here.