Speaker 1: It's Friday, June twelve. I'm Oscar Emrrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: We have shifted into a new phase in the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaker 1: We are social distancing, washing our hands, learning face masks,
Speaker 1: and we are reopening America. I'll still give you updates
Speaker 1: on any new information about the virus and vaccine development,
Speaker 1: but I will also be focusing on how cities, states,
Speaker 1: and industries affected by the shutdown are opening back up.
Speaker 1: When the country shut down to help prevent the spread
Speaker 1: of coronavirus, it was also thrust into the learning experiment
Speaker 1: of mass remote learning. As the end of the school
Speaker 1: year approaches, the results are in. It didn't work. The
Speaker 1: problems quickly stacked up in school districts ill equipped to
Speaker 1: make such drastic changes. Some students lacked access to computers
Speaker 1: or internet, teachers had no experience with remote learning, and
Speaker 1: some parents were unavailable to help. Lee Hawkins, education reporter
Speaker 1: at the Wall Street Journal, joins us for how the
Speaker 1: remote learning experiment went and what's on deck for next year.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Lee, Thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about what happened to our schools this
Speaker 1: past year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Everybody was forced
Speaker 1: into this grand experiment, so to speak, of mass remote learning.
Speaker 1: I think it was more than fifty million students from
Speaker 1: kindergarten all the way to twelfth grade had to use technology,
Speaker 1: and the teachers and the parents became this whole thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, after doing this for a few months,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the end of the school year. Now
Speaker 1: people are starting to think ahead, what's going to happen
Speaker 1: for this next school year. It seems like everybody roundly
Speaker 1: agrees that it was a pretty big failure due to
Speaker 1: a whole host of different reasons. Lee tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about it. There's some debate on whether or
Speaker 1: not it was a failure. In our story, we talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that many of the teachers and administrators
Speaker 1: that we interviewed said that it was a failure, and
Speaker 1: there were many, many problems with the adoption of it,
Speaker 1: and so the things that didn't work were a direct
Speaker 1: result of the way it started. It was very sudden,
Speaker 1: it was abrupt, it was unexpected. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we had this coronavirus that came from overseas, and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, as the number started the skyrocket, the leadership
Speaker 1: at many of the schools and the major cities and
Speaker 1: even in rural areas across this country were kind of
Speaker 1: reluctant to closed schools because they didn't know how to
Speaker 1: implement it in the future, how to implement remote learning
Speaker 1: over that time off. And so the fact that it
Speaker 1: was so abrupt and that there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: notice meant that there wasn't a lot of training. And
Speaker 1: the fact that there wasn't a lot of training, and
Speaker 1: the fact that children didn't have the devices that they needed,
Speaker 1: all of the children because of economic disparities, that only
Speaker 1: compounded the problem. So if there would have been more
Speaker 1: adequate training on the front end, it probably would have
Speaker 1: been a much smoother transition. But that actually haunted most
Speaker 1: of the schools in this country and has haunted most
Speaker 1: of the schools in this country all the way through
Speaker 1: the entire semester. We'll get into a lot of different specifics.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to bring up, though, I
Speaker 1: think there's a name for it, even the COVID slide,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of the learning gap for the
Speaker 1: kids during this last few months. This whole time, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're not learning at the same level anymore. I
Speaker 1: think there was a few statistics about it too, that
Speaker 1: kids are gonna return to school in the fall with
Speaker 1: roughly seventy of the learning gains in reading relative to
Speaker 1: a typical school year, and for math it's only so
Speaker 1: that's kind of most concerning to me too, is kids
Speaker 1: advancing to the next grade harder things that they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be learning, and they might not be prepared for it.
Speaker 1: A lot gets lost in translation when you're talking about
Speaker 1: teaching over a computer as opposed to teaching face to face.
Speaker 1: There were many students that struggled, particularly special needs students
Speaker 1: and students with a d h D, students with autism,
Speaker 1: but even more than that, students who are more visual
Speaker 1: learners who need to connect with their teach jersey in
Speaker 1: order to be able to comprehend the information. I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised at the difference between the performance of students and
Speaker 1: reading versus math, because once again, math is a very
Speaker 1: hands on endeavor, something that you need to actually maybe
Speaker 1: have follow up questions on. So that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that contributed to this COVID slide and it's
Speaker 1: going to require that schools, particularly like the New York
Speaker 1: Public School System, do some remedial training. This summer, the
Speaker 1: New York Public School System is going to be putting
Speaker 1: over a hundred and fifty thousand kids in summer school,
Speaker 1: and a lot of those students were put there because
Speaker 1: they need to catch up, and so the crips are
Speaker 1: now if that if schools reopened in the fall, that
Speaker 1: there will need to be even more review work to
Speaker 1: bring those kids up to speed. And if they don't
Speaker 1: do the review work, the question is will there be
Speaker 1: some learning loss that is long term that we start
Speaker 1: to see in standardized tests and tests to get to
Speaker 1: the next grade. So over time we're going to see
Speaker 1: how big this social experiment of remote learning full time
Speaker 1: the impact was on children long term, and that summer
Speaker 1: school is probably going to be done remote learning as well.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of continuing that when a sense there.
Speaker 1: I wanted to also talk about grading because this was
Speaker 1: one of the things that you keep reading into a
Speaker 1: little more and you're kind of like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to hold these kids accountable,
Speaker 1: I guess for learning, and it's tough. I know that
Speaker 1: there's huge problems with access, but we're talking about them
Speaker 1: not learning the right materials and if they advanced in
Speaker 1: the next grade, they're not going to be prepared. What
Speaker 1: a lot of school districts were even doing, will say,
Speaker 1: don't issue grades that would be harmful, don't issue F grades.
Speaker 1: I think some school districts even banned the F grades.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of things. They're called hold harmless,
Speaker 1: So don't give grades that would negatively affect students, but
Speaker 1: ones that are neutral or help advance them, those are permitted.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about grading. There was a
Speaker 1: wide range of grading processes that happened across school Talk
Speaker 1: to people at private schools who gave an option of
Speaker 1: past fail credit, no credit, things like that, because listen,
Speaker 1: if you're spending fifty dollars a year to go to
Speaker 1: an elite school in New York or something like that,
Speaker 1: poor grades are things that can haunt you when it's
Speaker 1: time to apply for college. And I think teachers and
Speaker 1: administrators understood that students should not be penalized if they
Speaker 1: did not perform well in remote learning environment. And it's
Speaker 1: not always because they don't get the remote learning. There
Speaker 1: can be family dynamics that are going on in the home.
Speaker 1: We see domestic violence suits up in periods like this,
Speaker 1: and reports of police coming to the home, and poverty
Speaker 1: and children not having access to consistent meals. These are
Speaker 1: all things that build the Blasio, the mayor of New
Speaker 1: York City, was very concerned about. And so the whole
Speaker 1: idea is, if you penalize kids for adverse childhood experiences
Speaker 1: that interfere with their ability to do well on remote learning,
Speaker 1: it's not fair to see their grades suffer because everybody
Speaker 1: needs to be on an equal plane in order to
Speaker 1: really grade everybody fairly. I mean, there's so much that's
Speaker 1: wrapped into this, and I'm just kind of moving through
Speaker 1: some of the points. Taking attendance was such a big
Speaker 1: hurdle for a lot of teachers and for the students themselves.
Speaker 1: They had a few statistics already showing that some of
Speaker 1: the kids weren't even showing up as soon as they
Speaker 1: were kind of getting when that maybe they weren't giving
Speaker 1: the fail grades out things like that. I think in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, for the l A Unified School District, they
Speaker 1: estimated that on any given day in a week span
Speaker 1: of high school students didn't even log in to do
Speaker 1: the remote learning. That's pretty crazy. A lot of our
Speaker 1: educational values come from our parents, but they also come
Speaker 1: from the financial and economic situation that we're in. There
Speaker 1: are many children who are babysitting siblings, there are many
Speaker 1: children who have to share a device with four other siblings,
Speaker 1: and there are many children who may have other responsibilities
Speaker 1: or things to worry about, and their parents may not
Speaker 1: be aggressive about telling them to log into school. At
Speaker 1: the ten year old has to use his or her
Speaker 1: own motivation to log into school. A lot of the
Speaker 1: times they may not do that unless they're reminded to
Speaker 1: do so. So, once again, there were many, many students
Speaker 1: who did not log in for these classes, sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: not even understanding how critical it was for them to
Speaker 1: do that, because once again, they are children, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of social and emotional learning that happened in
Speaker 1: a time of crisis, and this certainly can be characterized
Speaker 1: as a crisis. So there was an attendance crisis as
Speaker 1: a result. Let's talk about parents. You brought them up
Speaker 1: a little bit. They were put in an especially hard
Speaker 1: place as well. Many parents aren't necessarily adept to teaching.
Speaker 1: Maybe life lessons, yes, but maybe not the book stuff.
Speaker 1: And they were kind of thrust into this position of
Speaker 1: having to be teacher and as you mentioned, having to
Speaker 1: reinforce everything, Hey make sure you log in, make sure
Speaker 1: you attend the class, all this stuff. So the parents
Speaker 1: are put in a really hard place with this. This
Speaker 1: whole process has made people appreciate teachers so much more.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason that teachers just go to
Speaker 1: college and even get paid more if they receive a
Speaker 1: master's degree, because it's not just about a parent's ability
Speaker 1: to understand and comprehend the material. A parent to step
Speaker 1: into a teacher's role effectively would need to understand the
Speaker 1: communication and interpersonal connection techniques that teachers use on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis to pull the best out of
Speaker 1: their students. And in a class of thirty students, a
Speaker 1: lot of times there can be clusters of students who
Speaker 1: have different ways of learning, and it's the job of
Speaker 1: the teacher to read those students. You can have a
Speaker 1: relationship with your child and not really know how to
Speaker 1: connect to them in a classroom. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of parents that were put under a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of pressure because they had more than one child many times,
Speaker 1: and having to jump from child to child to help
Speaker 1: each of them finish their work. And with the younger students,
Speaker 1: it's a much more challenging and it's actually much more
Speaker 1: critical because if you're dealing with an elementary student, that's
Speaker 1: a student who is learning fundamental skills related to math
Speaker 1: and reading, and if they missed these lessons at this stage,
Speaker 1: they could have severe problems in the future. And we
Speaker 1: were essentially relying on the parents to be teaching these skills.
Speaker 1: It would be very, very hard, probably for anybody who
Speaker 1: doesn't have formal training as a teacher to figure out
Speaker 1: how to teach a third grader math and to answer
Speaker 1: questions in a way that that young person can comprehend
Speaker 1: it so it can connect on paper and in the mind.
Speaker 1: That's very difficult, and it's a special gift that teachers have,
Speaker 1: which is the reason why teachers are teachers. So the
Speaker 1: school years ending, everybody's already looking ahead to, you know,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, summer school even and then what's
Speaker 1: beyond that going back to school in the fall. What's
Speaker 1: going to be the plan. I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: things about a hybrid system which would basically be still
Speaker 1: some remote learning and then cycling kids in and out
Speaker 1: of live school instruction as well. It's one of the
Speaker 1: hardest things that public policy experts and union representatives and
Speaker 1: politicians and education administrators have to do is to come
Speaker 1: together with the plan to get kids back to school safely.
Speaker 1: So that plan needs to include social distancing and imagine
Speaker 1: what it would be like to try to convince a
Speaker 1: kindergartener to keep their mask on, or to have classes
Speaker 1: that are normally thirty students be shrunk to fifteen students.
Speaker 1: There's so many different considerations. Even in the way that
Speaker 1: the buildings are set up, there are problems with ventilation
Speaker 1: and all kinds of infrastructure issues that need to be addressed,
Speaker 1: and all of this they're trying to do before the fall.
Speaker 1: So it's very likely that there will be some kind
Speaker 1: of blended learning or how hybrid learning system that combine
Speaker 1: remote learning with face to face instruction. In some cases,
Speaker 1: you're hearing that kids could be going to school on Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Fridays and then switch to remote learning and then allow
Speaker 1: the other group of kids to go on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: and then they switched to remote learning. They are all
Speaker 1: kinds of different possible models and forms that this could take.
Speaker 1: But it's still being hashed out across cities across the country.
Speaker 1: And let's also remember that in some areas it's going
Speaker 1: to be more challenging than others. The New York Public
Speaker 1: School system has one point one million students. In some
Speaker 1: rural areas, it may not be as daunting because they
Speaker 1: may be able to pull off the social distancing requirements
Speaker 1: just because of the fact that they don't have as
Speaker 1: many students. So all of this is still being decided,
Speaker 1: and we're going to see if schools starts as we
Speaker 1: know it in the fog. There's a high, high possibility
Speaker 1: that remote learning will be a permanent part of some
Speaker 1: aspect of our future. Lee Hawkins, education reporter for The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, everybody. Stay safe. I'm Oscar Ramirez
Speaker 1: and this is reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's
Speaker 1: big news stories, you can check me out on the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday. So follow us
Speaker 1: on our heart radio or wherever you get your podcast.