Addressing the Long-Term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Families (2023) / Chapter Skim
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4 Effects and Potential Interventions in Education
4 Effects and Potential Interventions in Education
Pages 78-115
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From page 78... ...
The chapter's final section identifies initiatives for and approaches to mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on education. SCHOOLS AND EDUCATORS Initial Effects in K–12 Education By the end of March 2020 the vast majority of early childhood programs and K–12 public schools in the United States had closed for in-person learning.
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More than 75 percent of public schools reported that it is more difficult to get substitutes than it was before the pandemic. And almost 75 percent of public schools are frequently relying on administrators, nonteaching staff, and teachers on their free periods to cover classes (Institute for IES, 2022c)
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From page 80... ...
As the 2020–2021 school year began, some districts offered in-person learning; others offered only remote learning; and still others used hybrid approaches that combined the two, trying to balance the needs of safety and health with education. By January 2022, just 40 percent of K–12 students had access to any in-person instruction; by June 2022, more than 98 percent of public schools offered full-time in-person instructions (Institute of Education Sciences [IES]
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Mitigation and Safety Measures As the pandemic surged, early childhood learning programs and public schools were pressed to establish protocols and put in place a variety of measures to guard against the spread of the virus (Coronado et al., 2020)
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Closing and reopening schools and child care facilities was a challenging task, requiring attention to a wide range of issues, from access to facilities to the organization and management of classrooms. Opening schools was further complicated by the onset of new variants and the ensuing controversies over masking requirements, student and teacher safety, and frequently changing public health guidance.
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From page 83... ...
These differences in district wealth also translated into differences in how remote instruction was delivered and supported. Wealthier districts were more likely to provide printed materials to support remote lessons, more likely to have classes that were taught by the teacher of record, and more likely to have virtual lessons that were prerecorded and available asynchronously for students and parents: see Figure 4-1.
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From page 84... ...
School Engagement Engagement in schooling, from preschool through college, has dropped according to a variety of measures, including enrollment, attendance, and graduation. The available evidence, discussed below, suggests that because of the pandemic, fewer students are enrolled in public or any formal schooling or preschool; daily attendance is lower than it was prior to the pandemic; and high school graduation and college enrollment rates are lower than would have otherwise been expected.
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From page 85... ...
One result of the decreased demand and the supply constraints is that many child care centers have permanently closed. From December 2019 to March 2021, nearly 9,000 child care centers closed in the 37 states for which data was available, representing a 9 percent decrease in licensed centers (ChildCare Aware of America, 2022)
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From page 86... ...
These trends suggest that public schools continue to struggle to convince parents that school buildings are as safe and that instructional quality is as high as they were prior to the pandemic (Bamberger, 2022; Stein, 2022; Velez, 2022)
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From page 87... ...
In the 2021–2022 school year, 72 percent of public schools nationwide reported chronic absenteeism rates higher than the previous year, with only 27 percent saying the situation had improved relative to the 2020–2021 school year (IES, 2022c) : see Figure 4-3.
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From page 88... ...
High School Graduation The pandemic initially led to a small rise in high school graduation rates as many states waived graduation requirements in 2020; in 2021, graduation rates were stable or only falling modestly in most states. Though comprehensive national data on high school graduation rates will likely not be available until 2023 (after this report is published)
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From page 89... ...
That same evidence suggests the highest increases in 2020 high school graduation rates were concentrated among Black students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners. These roughly stable high school graduation rates, while perhaps surprising, may be driven by states' relaxed graduation standards in reaction to the pandemic.
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From page 90... ...
Between 2019 and 2021, freshman enrollment across all sectors declined by 14.3 percent for Black students, 8.6 percent for Latino students, and 19.6 percent for Native American students, compared with a 12.0 percent and a 3.5 percent decline for White and Asian students, respectively. For public four-year colleges, relative to White students, enrollment declines for Native American and Black students were twice as high, while for Latino students the decline was only 1/6th of that for White students.
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The evidence discussed below suggests that because of the pandemic, students' academic skills are lower than otherwise would have been expected. Missed learning was greater among students without access to in-person schooling, and missed learning was particularly acute for the low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized communities that are the focus of this report.
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Results for the assessments reflect the performance of students attending public schools, private schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, and U.S. Department of Defense schools (IES, 2022d,e)
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FIGURE 4-5 National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessment trends by state.
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Students, educators, and families all struggled with an unprecedented shock to home and school life. School closures were one potential contributor to missed learning.
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The rest of this chapter covers four areas for intervention: compensating for lost instructional time in order to address missed learning; reengaging families and students who have become disengaged from schools; strengthening the educator workforce needed to accomplish these first two goals; and pandemic-proofing schools to minimize future disease-related disruptions to education. Addressing Missed Learning Opportunities As detailed in Chapter 3, the pandemic resulted in substantial reduction of instructional time and in decreased learning for K–12 students due to school closures and to the broader health, economic, and social disruptions caused by the pandemic.
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From page 96... ...
plan their spending of the last of the ESSER pandemic education funding, they will have to make difficult decisions between funding the need to address missed learning, fixing aging and financially neglected school buildings and facilities, bolstering school staffing, and implementing programs and support for students' social and emotional development and mental and physical health needs. Prepublication copy, uncorrected proofs 96
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From page 97... ...
Evidence supporting other interventions -- including summer learning programs, extended school day interventions, and mentoring -- is somewhat mixed, with some studies finding strong positive effects and others finding limited effects (Kraft, 2015; Dorn et al., 2020; Beach et al., 2021; Cruz et al., 2022; Lynch et al., 2022; Weiss et al., 2022)
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From page 98... ...
Deploying different approaches together could be useful not only to compensate for specific areas of missed learning, but also to address consequences of the pandemic on students' mental health, social and emotional development, loss of friendship networks, and school disengagement. These interventions could also provide a venue to detect early warning signs of disengagement or learning challenges.
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From page 99... ...
Scaling challenges are exacerbated by the staffing shortages across public schools resulting from the pandemic, which is particularly severe in some regions of the country (IES, 2022c)
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Several initiatives already in place provide useful blueprints. 8 Reengaging Students and Families and Restoring Enrollment As detailed above, public school enrollments dropped nationwide during the pandemic, with the sharpest declines in the earliest grades.
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To the extent that returning to school includes hybrid approaches, monitoring attendance in remote settings will also assist with effective student engagement. There is growing evidence that virtual learning worked well for some students but not for others (Povich, 2020; Anderson, 2022)
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. One approach to establishing personal connections between students and adults is reflected in Nashville's Navigator Initiative, in which teachers and other school staff meet regularly with students to get to know them better and to learn what kind of support they need (Jacobson, 2020; Metro Nashville Public Schools, 2021)
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From page 103... ...
Improve and Enhance Induction and Mentoring Efforts One cause of the current education staffing shortage is the failure of the education sector to retain teachers. Evidence suggests that schools lose many teachers within the first 3–5 years because of a lack of support and inadequate mentoring and professional learning opportunities (Ingersoll, 2001; Solis, 2004; Loeb et al., 2005; Maready et al., 2021)
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From page 104... ...
Fear about the virus and schools' potential role in spreading it drove many of the extended school closures, caused at least some of disenrollment from formal schooling, and has likely made it harder to retain and recruit teachers. Concern about the health risks of in-person schooling is higher among low-income and racially and minoritized communities than other communities.
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One estimate suggests that school districts would need an annual infusion of $85 billion more than they currently spend in order to fully upgrade school buildings (21st Century School Fund, 2021)
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. 2021 state of our schools: America's PK-12 public school facilities.
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From page 107... ...
. COVID 19: Effects of school closures on foundational skills and promising practices for monitoring and mitigating learning loss.
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. Patterns in the pandemic decline of public school enrollment.
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. How has the pandemic affected high school graduation and college entry?
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, "Public School Teacher Data File," 2017–18. National Center for Education Statistics.
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. A blueprint for scaling tutoring and mentoring across public schools.
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, 240–246. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20050557 Metro Nashville Public Schools.
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. The pandemic's effect on demand for public schools, homeschooling, and private schools, Journal of Public Economics, 212, 104710.
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. Estimated resource costs for implementation of CDC's recommended COVID-19 mitigation strategies in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 public schools -- United States, 2020-21.
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, "Public School Teacher Data File," 2017–18 US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights.
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