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"content": "\u003cp>Diana Muhammad, who teaches PE and dance in Chicago Public Schools, was \"unsure,\" \"uncertain\" and \"reluctant\" about her district's plan for in-person classes starting Monday. At a Chicago Teachers Union \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2EBCKCAK-ao\">press conference\u003c/a> earlier this month, she said the plan felt \"rushed.\" And then things got really scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Over the winter break, my life was devastated when my daughter, who was sick with various symptoms all over the place for an entire week, woke up one morning and could not see.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter ended up in intensive care for a week, she said. It turned out to be a case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C. That's an extremely rare, and very dangerous, complication of COVID-19 found in children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/07/16/miscdata071620\">particularly in Black and Latino children\u003c/a>. Noting this disparate impact, and the fact that Chicago Public School students are about 90% nonwhite, Muhammad said, \"Now I am seriously concerned about us rushing back without having a well-thought-out plan.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that opening Chicago's school buildings in February 2021, 11 months after they shut down, constitutes \"rushing back\" would be news in most of the country. As of the third week of January, 58% of students nationwide were in districts with at least some in-person learning. That's according to the organization Burbio, which scrapes a selection of school websites for the data. And that's actually a growing number. Burbio reported that late January brought the biggest drop in \"virtual-only\" students since September. Many districts opened up school buildings again after closures brought on by holiday-related spikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Burbio estimates that about a third of the country's students have not had a single day in school since last March. This includes much of the West Coast, the Mid-Atlantic and some big cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Atlanta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some of those districts, trying to open up for the first time right now is like spitting into a freezing wind (without a mask). On Tuesday, the Chicago Teachers Union and CPS \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/heres-why-teachers-wont-show-up-wednesday-and-why-that-could-trigger-a-strike/a07789c5-0c5c-435c-bb6d-8b51ccbe6e09\">failed to reach a deal on school reopening\u003c/a>, triggering plans for 14,000 school staff to refuse to report to schools on Wednesday, and opening the door for a strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Montclair, N.J., an affluent New York City suburb, teachers also refused to come to work, leading the district to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/nyregion/montclair-schools-covid.html\">abandon its opening plans\u003c/a> set for this past Monday. And Washington, D.C., appears \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/district-schools-reopening-plan/2021/01/24/e7c2ec0e-5cb1-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html\">headed for a similar showdown\u003c/a> over a Feb. 1 opening date. In all three places, this is only the latest in a series of torn-up reopening plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>#OnlyWhenItsSafe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrible and mounting toll of the pandemic has caused positions to harden on both sides of the reopening debate. For districts that pledged in the summer or fall to reopen when coronavirus numbers got better, there are many cases where \u003ca href=\"https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2020/11/10/21558568/philadelphia-again-delays-start-of-in-person-learning\">the numbers haven't cooperated\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There is little likelihood the low-income communities we serve, which have been hit hardest by the virus, will meet the proposed 'Safe Schools for All' COVID guidelines by February 1st,\" Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner \u003ca href=\"https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/930/Austin%20Beutner_January%2025_Update%20to%20the%20School%20Community_Speech%20Transcript_English.pdf\">told his community\u003c/a> on Monday. \"Many experts say even March 1st is unlikely, given current health conditions. Sadly, COVID numbers remain at dangerously high levels in nearly every category — infections, hospitalizations and deaths.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to now, there has been no centralized data collection on cases, outbreaks and mitigation measures in U.S. schools — something President Biden has \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/21/959162019/biden-announces-executive-actions-meant-to-help-reopen-schools\">just ordered federal agencies to begin doing\u003c/a>. Still, there is an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/07/953961009/where-is-it-safe-to-reopen-schools-new-research-offers-answers\">emerging scientific consensus\u003c/a> that schools can be safe, given the right precautions, even when community spread is high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/960885936\">On Tuesday\u003c/a>, three Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists released a review of U.S. and international evidence in the \u003cem>Journal of the American Medical Association \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875\">making just this point\u003c/a>: \"Accumulating data now suggest a path forward to maintain or return primarily or fully to in-person instructional delivery.\" With precautions, and canceling higher-risk activities such as athletics, the paper said, reopening can be safe. Separately, the CDC itself released \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm?s_cid=mm7004e3_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM47411&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2070%2C%20January%2026%2C%202021&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM47411\">a study of schools in Wisconsin\u003c/a> that found even when cases were spiking in the community, there were just seven cases among nearly 5,000 students and zero cases among staff. That's with more than 9 out of 10 students reportedly wearing masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With heartbreaking experiences like Diana Muhammad's to share, teachers unions in some places have rallied around the cry \"\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/onlywhenitssafe?lang=en\">#OnlyWhenItsSafe\u003c/a>.\" But \"safe\" means trusting management to report cases, sanitize buildings, improve ventilation — and multiple rounds of negotiations have detonated old landmines of mistrust and mistreatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, for example, the tug of war between the union and the school district \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-vote-to-reject-in-person-school/dd5ba310-e877-4a64-aa4f-8b46c2704abe\">goes back to March\u003c/a>. Administrators, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the head of the Chicago Department of Public Health did not initially want to close schools. But, just after the union held a press conference calling for schools to be closed in March, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the call that schools would be shut down statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once schools were closed, city and school district officials twice insisted that they reopen for in-person learning. Both times the union fought back, even threatening to hold a strike vote. Both times, the school district blinked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet for much of the past year, CPS officials have insisted — and still insist — that the union cannot dictate whether schools are open or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Washington, D.C., teachers explain their hesitation to go back to in-person learning by citing historic educational inequities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"East of the river, things are dictated to us,\" says teachers union activist Laura Fuchs, referring to a \u003ca href=\"https://dcist.com/story/19/05/30/does-east-of-the-river-need-a-new-name/\">low-income, majority Black area of the city\u003c/a>. \"The [school] bathroom has not had a working soap dispenser since the building opened ... they don't seem to care.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D.C. Public Schools told NPR over email, \"We are proud to have worked collaboratively with the Washington Teachers' Union on an agreement reached in December that represents our shared commitment to ensuring students have the high-quality education and supports they need to thrive, and our teachers and staff feel safe and prepared to return to school buildings.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goalposts on \"safe\" also seem to keep moving. Now that vaccines are out, some teachers say they will agree to return to work in person only when fully vaccinated, which could take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University of Washington epidemiologist Helen Chu, who became known early in the pandemic for \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html\">detecting the first signs of local transmission\u003c/a> in the U.S., endorsed that position recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1255&v=FeKD2u5n-Lg&feature=youtu.be\">on a public panel\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Get the teachers vaccinated, that's clearly important and can be done right now, and at that point, that's when we reopen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In at least one state, Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1347264768143405056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1347264768143405056%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Flifestyle%2Fohio-governor-says-teaching-person-010809789.html\">asking superintendents to sign a pledge\u003c/a> to resume in-person instruction by March 1 as a condition of their staff receiving priority access to the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>#OpenSchools\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grace Lee, chief medical officer for practice innovation and a pediatric infectious disease physician at Stanford Children's Health, advised the CDC on coronavirus vaccine priorities. Her position differs from Chu's: \"Clearly, both schools in the U.S. and schools in other countries have been able to effectively reopen,\" she says. With multiple \"Swiss cheese\" layers of precautions, including masking, distancing, handwashing and ventilation, she says school can be relatively safe; the vaccine is one more layer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the months drag on without the in-person learning, the specialized services, the social opportunities, the hot meals or the child care that schools provide, some parents have organized under hashtags like #OpenSchools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lisa Cohen, a parent of a kindergartner in Washington, D.C., is one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's fear-based,\" she says of the drive to stay remote. \"Like if it was science-based, fact-based, data-based, we could put out a metric or we could look at the data and decide when we get there and when it's safe. But it has become an emotional conversation. It's become a political conversation. And I don't know where and how you end those.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These open school advocates have marshaled the support of many pediatricians, as in \u003ca href=\"https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/af00deb7-5d62-44bb-9e36-494e83b6a185/Pediatricians%20Urge%20Return%20to%20In-Person%20School.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0IIxyrc_MAA4fjAdqyW1YrLGpV4h9BJwlvDWSsXmWsrIlzyXJQNFkPpJU\">this open letter\u003c/a>. They point to the many states where schools are mostly open — such as Florida, Georgia and Texas — yet cases have started to come down again in the past few weeks, as they have elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A mountain of makeup work ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many late-opening districts, only a minority of families have signaled interest in changing their current remote school and child care arrangements in favor of a few days a week of in-person learning, sometimes with a different teacher than they've been working with all year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/district-schools-reopening-plan/2021/01/24/e7c2ec0e-5cb1-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html\">reported over the weekend\u003c/a> that 5,200 D.C. students had signed up for in-person classes in a district of about 50,000. In Chicago, the district said it planned to bring \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-vote-to-reject-in-person-school/dd5ba310-e877-4a64-aa4f-8b46c2704abe\">about 70,000 elementary school students back\u003c/a>, out of about 280,000 total students enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Fuchs in D.C. says her district's reopening plan is sorely lacking details and doesn't sound particularly engaging for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're going back once a week, with a group of students placed in a cohort, to do a combination of remediation, test prep, makeup work.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as the voices get louder, the time remaining in this school year dwindles, and the pile of makeup work for everyone is just getting bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eda Uzunlar is an intern on NPR's Education Desk.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Don%27t+Call+It+A+Comeback%3A+School+Districts+That+Never+Opened+Are+Having+Trouble+Now&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Diana Muhammad, who teaches PE and dance in Chicago Public Schools, was \"unsure,\" \"uncertain\" and \"reluctant\" about her district's plan for in-person classes starting Monday. At a Chicago Teachers Union \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2EBCKCAK-ao\">press conference\u003c/a> earlier this month, she said the plan felt \"rushed.\" And then things got really scary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Over the winter break, my life was devastated when my daughter, who was sick with various symptoms all over the place for an entire week, woke up one morning and could not see.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter ended up in intensive care for a week, she said. It turned out to be a case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C. That's an extremely rare, and very dangerous, complication of COVID-19 found in children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/07/16/miscdata071620\">particularly in Black and Latino children\u003c/a>. Noting this disparate impact, and the fact that Chicago Public School students are about 90% nonwhite, Muhammad said, \"Now I am seriously concerned about us rushing back without having a well-thought-out plan.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that opening Chicago's school buildings in February 2021, 11 months after they shut down, constitutes \"rushing back\" would be news in most of the country. As of the third week of January, 58% of students nationwide were in districts with at least some in-person learning. That's according to the organization Burbio, which scrapes a selection of school websites for the data. And that's actually a growing number. Burbio reported that late January brought the biggest drop in \"virtual-only\" students since September. Many districts opened up school buildings again after closures brought on by holiday-related spikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Burbio estimates that about a third of the country's students have not had a single day in school since last March. This includes much of the West Coast, the Mid-Atlantic and some big cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Atlanta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some of those districts, trying to open up for the first time right now is like spitting into a freezing wind (without a mask). On Tuesday, the Chicago Teachers Union and CPS \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/heres-why-teachers-wont-show-up-wednesday-and-why-that-could-trigger-a-strike/a07789c5-0c5c-435c-bb6d-8b51ccbe6e09\">failed to reach a deal on school reopening\u003c/a>, triggering plans for 14,000 school staff to refuse to report to schools on Wednesday, and opening the door for a strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Montclair, N.J., an affluent New York City suburb, teachers also refused to come to work, leading the district to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/nyregion/montclair-schools-covid.html\">abandon its opening plans\u003c/a> set for this past Monday. And Washington, D.C., appears \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/district-schools-reopening-plan/2021/01/24/e7c2ec0e-5cb1-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html\">headed for a similar showdown\u003c/a> over a Feb. 1 opening date. In all three places, this is only the latest in a series of torn-up reopening plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>#OnlyWhenItsSafe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrible and mounting toll of the pandemic has caused positions to harden on both sides of the reopening debate. For districts that pledged in the summer or fall to reopen when coronavirus numbers got better, there are many cases where \u003ca href=\"https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2020/11/10/21558568/philadelphia-again-delays-start-of-in-person-learning\">the numbers haven't cooperated\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There is little likelihood the low-income communities we serve, which have been hit hardest by the virus, will meet the proposed 'Safe Schools for All' COVID guidelines by February 1st,\" Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner \u003ca href=\"https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/930/Austin%20Beutner_January%2025_Update%20to%20the%20School%20Community_Speech%20Transcript_English.pdf\">told his community\u003c/a> on Monday. \"Many experts say even March 1st is unlikely, given current health conditions. Sadly, COVID numbers remain at dangerously high levels in nearly every category — infections, hospitalizations and deaths.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to now, there has been no centralized data collection on cases, outbreaks and mitigation measures in U.S. schools — something President Biden has \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/21/959162019/biden-announces-executive-actions-meant-to-help-reopen-schools\">just ordered federal agencies to begin doing\u003c/a>. Still, there is an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/07/953961009/where-is-it-safe-to-reopen-schools-new-research-offers-answers\">emerging scientific consensus\u003c/a> that schools can be safe, given the right precautions, even when community spread is high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/960885936\">On Tuesday\u003c/a>, three Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists released a review of U.S. and international evidence in the \u003cem>Journal of the American Medical Association \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875\">making just this point\u003c/a>: \"Accumulating data now suggest a path forward to maintain or return primarily or fully to in-person instructional delivery.\" With precautions, and canceling higher-risk activities such as athletics, the paper said, reopening can be safe. Separately, the CDC itself released \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm?s_cid=mm7004e3_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM47411&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2070%2C%20January%2026%2C%202021&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM47411\">a study of schools in Wisconsin\u003c/a> that found even when cases were spiking in the community, there were just seven cases among nearly 5,000 students and zero cases among staff. That's with more than 9 out of 10 students reportedly wearing masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With heartbreaking experiences like Diana Muhammad's to share, teachers unions in some places have rallied around the cry \"\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/onlywhenitssafe?lang=en\">#OnlyWhenItsSafe\u003c/a>.\" But \"safe\" means trusting management to report cases, sanitize buildings, improve ventilation — and multiple rounds of negotiations have detonated old landmines of mistrust and mistreatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago, for example, the tug of war between the union and the school district \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-vote-to-reject-in-person-school/dd5ba310-e877-4a64-aa4f-8b46c2704abe\">goes back to March\u003c/a>. Administrators, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the head of the Chicago Department of Public Health did not initially want to close schools. But, just after the union held a press conference calling for schools to be closed in March, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the call that schools would be shut down statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once schools were closed, city and school district officials twice insisted that they reopen for in-person learning. Both times the union fought back, even threatening to hold a strike vote. Both times, the school district blinked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet for much of the past year, CPS officials have insisted — and still insist — that the union cannot dictate whether schools are open or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Washington, D.C., teachers explain their hesitation to go back to in-person learning by citing historic educational inequities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"East of the river, things are dictated to us,\" says teachers union activist Laura Fuchs, referring to a \u003ca href=\"https://dcist.com/story/19/05/30/does-east-of-the-river-need-a-new-name/\">low-income, majority Black area of the city\u003c/a>. \"The [school] bathroom has not had a working soap dispenser since the building opened ... they don't seem to care.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D.C. Public Schools told NPR over email, \"We are proud to have worked collaboratively with the Washington Teachers' Union on an agreement reached in December that represents our shared commitment to ensuring students have the high-quality education and supports they need to thrive, and our teachers and staff feel safe and prepared to return to school buildings.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goalposts on \"safe\" also seem to keep moving. Now that vaccines are out, some teachers say they will agree to return to work in person only when fully vaccinated, which could take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University of Washington epidemiologist Helen Chu, who became known early in the pandemic for \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html\">detecting the first signs of local transmission\u003c/a> in the U.S., endorsed that position recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1255&v=FeKD2u5n-Lg&feature=youtu.be\">on a public panel\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Get the teachers vaccinated, that's clearly important and can be done right now, and at that point, that's when we reopen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In at least one state, Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine is \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1347264768143405056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1347264768143405056%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Flifestyle%2Fohio-governor-says-teaching-person-010809789.html\">asking superintendents to sign a pledge\u003c/a> to resume in-person instruction by March 1 as a condition of their staff receiving priority access to the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>#OpenSchools\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grace Lee, chief medical officer for practice innovation and a pediatric infectious disease physician at Stanford Children's Health, advised the CDC on coronavirus vaccine priorities. Her position differs from Chu's: \"Clearly, both schools in the U.S. and schools in other countries have been able to effectively reopen,\" she says. With multiple \"Swiss cheese\" layers of precautions, including masking, distancing, handwashing and ventilation, she says school can be relatively safe; the vaccine is one more layer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the months drag on without the in-person learning, the specialized services, the social opportunities, the hot meals or the child care that schools provide, some parents have organized under hashtags like #OpenSchools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lisa Cohen, a parent of a kindergartner in Washington, D.C., is one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's fear-based,\" she says of the drive to stay remote. \"Like if it was science-based, fact-based, data-based, we could put out a metric or we could look at the data and decide when we get there and when it's safe. But it has become an emotional conversation. It's become a political conversation. And I don't know where and how you end those.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These open school advocates have marshaled the support of many pediatricians, as in \u003ca href=\"https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/af00deb7-5d62-44bb-9e36-494e83b6a185/Pediatricians%20Urge%20Return%20to%20In-Person%20School.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0IIxyrc_MAA4fjAdqyW1YrLGpV4h9BJwlvDWSsXmWsrIlzyXJQNFkPpJU\">this open letter\u003c/a>. They point to the many states where schools are mostly open — such as Florida, Georgia and Texas — yet cases have started to come down again in the past few weeks, as they have elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A mountain of makeup work ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many late-opening districts, only a minority of families have signaled interest in changing their current remote school and child care arrangements in favor of a few days a week of in-person learning, sometimes with a different teacher than they've been working with all year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/district-schools-reopening-plan/2021/01/24/e7c2ec0e-5cb1-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html\">reported over the weekend\u003c/a> that 5,200 D.C. students had signed up for in-person classes in a district of about 50,000. In Chicago, the district said it planned to bring \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-vote-to-reject-in-person-school/dd5ba310-e877-4a64-aa4f-8b46c2704abe\">about 70,000 elementary school students back\u003c/a>, out of about 280,000 total students enrolled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Fuchs in D.C. says her district's reopening plan is sorely lacking details and doesn't sound particularly engaging for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're going back once a week, with a group of students placed in a cohort, to do a combination of remediation, test prep, makeup work.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as the voices get louder, the time remaining in this school year dwindles, and the pile of makeup work for everyone is just getting bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eda Uzunlar is an intern on NPR's Education Desk.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Don%27t+Call+It+A+Comeback%3A+School+Districts+That+Never+Opened+Are+Having+Trouble+Now&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated at 10:58 a.m. ET Wednesday\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data from K-12 schools that reopened for in-person instruction in the fall show little evidence that schools contributed meaningfully to the spread of COVID-19, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875?guestAccessKey=9961f22d-99e6-4861-8fa6-cf0b3463ef92&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=012621\">new article\u003c/a> published Tuesday in \u003cem>JAMA, \u003c/em>the journal of the American Medical Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The overview from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authored by three of its scientists, represents the clearest view yet of the facts behind what has become a heated debate over when and how schools should reopen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last spring and into fall, schools across the country closed — and many remain closed — out of fear that allowing students and staff to return to school buildings would drive communitywide spread of the virus, much as nursing homes and crowded bars have done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC report says data from reopened classrooms show that \"the type of rapid spread that was frequently observed in congregate living facilities or high-density worksites has not been reported in education settings in schools.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, evidence mounts of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/18/953581851/ive-tried-everything-pandemic-has-cut-options-for-kids-with-mental-illness\">social, emotional\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/945136613/new-studies-show-the-pandemic-highlights-inequality-in-u-s-education-system\">academic toll\u003c/a> remote learning has taken on children, especially in already vulnerable, low-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the school systems cited in the review were 11 North Carolina districts serving more than 90,000 students and staff. During a nine-week period this fall, researchers found just 32 infections acquired in school — compared with 773 cases of students and staff infected outside school. None of those 32 in-school transmissions involved students infecting teachers or staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another study, of 17 schools in rural Wisconsin, mask-wearing helped keep the COVID-19 incidence lower in schools than in the larger community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the researchers call the findings \"reassuring,\" they make clear that much of the success schools have had in preventing transmission is the result of their embrace of safety precautions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All recommended mitigation measures in schools must continue: requiring universal face mask use, increasing physical distance ... increasing room air ventilation, and expanding screening testing to rapidly identify and isolate asymptomatic infected individuals,\" the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC authors do single out a few school-based functions that can drive infections, namely indoor sports practices and events. They cite a pair of high school wrestling tournaments in Florida where 38 of the 54 participants who were tested, tested positive, some of whom brought the virus back to their families and friend circles. The report also serves as a reminder that schools do not operate in a vacuum. To keep COVID-19 out of classrooms, communities should be prepared to fight it elsewhere, including by restricting indoor dining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The summary was published online as a \"Viewpoint,\" and, though it was authored by CDC scientists, it included a disclaimer that its conclusions \"do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\" But, when asked by NPR if the article's conclusions could be attributed to CDC, an agency spokesman confirmed that they could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report comes at an inflection point for the U.S., where more than 420,000 people have died from the disease and communities have been bracing for the arrival of more contagious coronavirus variants. At the same time, the federal government has begun a massive, if plodding, vaccination rollout. Some states have prioritized inoculating educators and school staff as teachers unions in some communities \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/biden-schools-reopen-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=1\">have resisted a return\u003c/a> to school for safety reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden has pledged to help the majority of schools reopen within his first 100 days. His administration\u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2021-01-14/biden-proposes-175-billion-to-reopen-schools\"> has proposed sending $130 billion\u003c/a> in relief to K-12 schools to help pay for the kinds of costly mitigation efforts the CDC recommends, including socially distanced classrooms and ventilation updates for aging buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=CDC+Makes+The+Case+For+Schools+Reopening&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated at 10:58 a.m. ET Wednesday\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data from K-12 schools that reopened for in-person instruction in the fall show little evidence that schools contributed meaningfully to the spread of COVID-19, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875?guestAccessKey=9961f22d-99e6-4861-8fa6-cf0b3463ef92&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=012621\">new article\u003c/a> published Tuesday in \u003cem>JAMA, \u003c/em>the journal of the American Medical Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The overview from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authored by three of its scientists, represents the clearest view yet of the facts behind what has become a heated debate over when and how schools should reopen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last spring and into fall, schools across the country closed — and many remain closed — out of fear that allowing students and staff to return to school buildings would drive communitywide spread of the virus, much as nursing homes and crowded bars have done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC report says data from reopened classrooms show that \"the type of rapid spread that was frequently observed in congregate living facilities or high-density worksites has not been reported in education settings in schools.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, evidence mounts of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/18/953581851/ive-tried-everything-pandemic-has-cut-options-for-kids-with-mental-illness\">social, emotional\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/945136613/new-studies-show-the-pandemic-highlights-inequality-in-u-s-education-system\">academic toll\u003c/a> remote learning has taken on children, especially in already vulnerable, low-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the school systems cited in the review were 11 North Carolina districts serving more than 90,000 students and staff. During a nine-week period this fall, researchers found just 32 infections acquired in school — compared with 773 cases of students and staff infected outside school. None of those 32 in-school transmissions involved students infecting teachers or staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another study, of 17 schools in rural Wisconsin, mask-wearing helped keep the COVID-19 incidence lower in schools than in the larger community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the researchers call the findings \"reassuring,\" they make clear that much of the success schools have had in preventing transmission is the result of their embrace of safety precautions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All recommended mitigation measures in schools must continue: requiring universal face mask use, increasing physical distance ... increasing room air ventilation, and expanding screening testing to rapidly identify and isolate asymptomatic infected individuals,\" the report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CDC authors do single out a few school-based functions that can drive infections, namely indoor sports practices and events. They cite a pair of high school wrestling tournaments in Florida where 38 of the 54 participants who were tested, tested positive, some of whom brought the virus back to their families and friend circles. The report also serves as a reminder that schools do not operate in a vacuum. To keep COVID-19 out of classrooms, communities should be prepared to fight it elsewhere, including by restricting indoor dining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The summary was published online as a \"Viewpoint,\" and, though it was authored by CDC scientists, it included a disclaimer that its conclusions \"do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\" But, when asked by NPR if the article's conclusions could be attributed to CDC, an agency spokesman confirmed that they could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report comes at an inflection point for the U.S., where more than 420,000 people have died from the disease and communities have been bracing for the arrival of more contagious coronavirus variants. At the same time, the federal government has begun a massive, if plodding, vaccination rollout. Some states have prioritized inoculating educators and school staff as teachers unions in some communities \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/biden-schools-reopen-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=1\">have resisted a return\u003c/a> to school for safety reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden has pledged to help the majority of schools reopen within his first 100 days. His administration\u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2021-01-14/biden-proposes-175-billion-to-reopen-schools\"> has proposed sending $130 billion\u003c/a> in relief to K-12 schools to help pay for the kinds of costly mitigation efforts the CDC recommends, including socially distanced classrooms and ventilation updates for aging buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=CDC+Makes+The+Case+For+Schools+Reopening&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "What Lessons Does Special Education Hold for Improving Personalized Learning?",
"title": "What Lessons Does Special Education Hold for Improving Personalized Learning?",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a shelf in her Chicago classroom, third grader Arianna has a thick binder that details her achievements, strengths and goals as a student, along with some revealing information about her personality. It describes her love of guitar and singing and notes that she wants to advance to a higher level in reading and grasp math concepts more quickly. Her sister, Alanni, an eighth grader, has a binder too. It discusses her grades and standardized test scores, as well as her academic goals: to speak up more frequently in math class and read texts more closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The binders resemble, to a degree, the individualized education programs, or IEPs, that are at the heart of education for students with disabilities. But Arianna and Alanni aren’t special education students. Every child at their pre-K-8 school, Belmont-Cragin, has one of these so-called individual learner profiles. The profiles are part of the school’s embrace of personalized learning, which centers on the belief that a teacher lecturing at the front of a classroom is a bad fit for today’s students. Instead, the thinking goes, students must be encouraged to learn at their own pace, with lessons tailored to their specific aptitudes and needs, often with the aid of technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized learning has, in recent years, become one of the most talked-about trends in education. Fueled by donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists, the instructional approach has spread to classrooms around the country and more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">40 states are exploring it in some form\u003c/a>. As education leaders cast about for solutions to the performance gaps exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hitting upon the idea that more personalized methods could help schools better serve students who’ve had wildly different experiences with education this year. In the process, they are finding inspiration in special education, which, since the 1975 passage of what’s now known as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has promised students with disabilities special services and accommodations to help them learn at their full potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can you imagine the power of an individualized education plan for every student?” Richard Carranza, New York City’s education chancellor, \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/10/22168384/nyc-schools-covid-learning-loss\">said recently\u003c/a> in discussing his agency’s plans for new tools to help students recover the learning they’ve lost during school closures. “Just think about identifying the explicit skills that students need to work on and the plan that we have to help them achieve a mastery of that explicit skill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are plenty of reasons to be cautious. If anything, special education demonstrates the vast challenges of individualizing education. Tailoring learning to students’ exact needs takes significant resources, teacher training and, ideally, close collaboration with families — something many schools struggle to pull off. While there are limits to comparisons between the two educational approaches — special education is legally mandated and personalized learning is a loosely defined pedagogical philosophy that takes many forms — some of the cracks that have appeared in personalized learning are not unlike those facing special education. Both types of education, for example, require significant resources and trained staff — but often don’t get either. Schools introducing personalized learning have faced criticism for relying on technology to help kids learn at different paces within the same classroom as districts avoid having to drastically scale up their staff; staff shortages have long been \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">endemic in special education\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, for all the hype around personalized learning, evidence of its success remains scant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School systems and schools have struggled to deliver on the promise of special education,” said Betheny Gross, associate director of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education. “It isn’t just a matter of taking the principles of special education and doing them at scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57300\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at CICS West Belden often work in small groups or with the help of technology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At present, roughly 7 million students, or \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">14 percent\u003c/a> of public schoolchildren, are enrolled in special education nationwide. As personalized learning advocates push forward with plans to roll out their approach to many more of the nation’s schoolchildren, it’s worth considering how lessons from 45 years of educating students with disabilities might help shape this latest educational experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One morning in 2019, close to 40 educators gathered in a commercial building on the Chicago riverfront that houses the offices of LEAP Innovations. LEAP is a nonprofit organization that trains schools and teachers to use personalized learning in their classrooms. The day’s professional development for these Chicago Public Schools teachers, alumni of the program, was a refresher, a way to strengthen their teaching practice, share ideas and return to the classroom newly inspired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago has embraced personalized learning in a big way. In early 2018, Chicago Public Schools and LEAP received $14 million in grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to train teachers and principals on personalizing learning. (CZI is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.) The grant funding provided 35 city schools with two-and-a-half years of professional development and instructional coaching through LEAP, plus technology and classroom resources, via the school district’s \u003ca href=\"https://practices.learningaccelerator.org/artifacts/the-chicago-public-schools-elevate-program\">Elevate Program\u003c/a>, which aims to bring personalized learning to 150 Chicago schools by the end of 2021. Concurrently, a portion of the funding went to LEAP to help train principals and teachers at more than 100 Chicago-area schools on personalized learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a morning of workshops on topics like helping students puzzle through problems, working in teams and designing learning goals, teachers broke for lunch that day in 2019, gathering around large tables to chat. At one table, the conversation turned to the growing pains of changing course from the traditional “sage on a stage” teaching model, where a teacher holds forth at the front of the classroom while students listen, to a student-focused, personalized model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started this process five years ago and all I could think was: ‘Oh my god, this is going to be a nightmare!’ Because I thought this would mean that, on top of everything I was already doing, I’d be creating an IEP for every single student,” said Kathleen Bourret, a teacher at R.H. Lee Elementary, a Pre-K-8 school on Chicago’s southwest side. “I didn’t have the mindset to make this shift. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, and now you’re gonna make me do what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bourret’s learning curve when it came to personalized learning is pretty typical for teachers, said Chris Liang-Vergara, who was then serving as LEAP’s chief of learning innovation. And it’s something the people at LEAP try to alleviate by bringing in past cohorts, like that day’s group, to mingle and continue sharing ideas and inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely not always rainbows and sunshine,” said Liang-Vergara. “Keeping that honest and real is important. You don’t say: ‘I’m going to do personalized learning and it’s going to be beautiful.’ There’s a real shift that happens with you as a professional, with your kids in the classroom, and that change process takes time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57298\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57298\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colleen Collins, school director at CICS West Belden, works with students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The shift in mindset involves moving away from a teaching model that is centered on curriculum and meeting benchmarks toward being student-centered in ways that demand differentiated instruction based on a child’s interests, strengths, weaknesses and background. Students often work in small groups, with help from a co-teacher, or one-on-one, with lessons fitted to their skills and abilities. In theory, their progress is tracked closely, with their goals and assignments updated continually to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of this may sound familiar to teachers of special education. As part of their jobs, special education teachers assess students and develop teaching plans based on each student’s skill levels. They teach students as a class and one-on-one or in small groups. They collaborate with school-based service providers such as occupational, physical and speech therapists, in order to cull reams of information and write IEPs that, often, run more than ten double-sided pages, and ideally provide detailed documentation of a child’s strengths, weaknesses and goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teachers often come unprepared to do this work, and don’t get the support they need from their schools and districts, in part because special education is \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-the-feds-still-fall-short-on-special-education-funding/2020/01\">chronically underfunded\u003c/a>. They may struggle to assess students’ abilities and needs, education researchers say, and \u003ca href=\"https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/tchr-ret/cresource/q1/p01/\">turnover\u003c/a> for special education teachers tends to be high. The paperwork involved can be overwhelming. All of this suggests that if personalized learning is to succeed, it must emphasize supporting teachers and investing in their professional development, say education experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get a master’s degree in special education, do you come out knowing how to teach every single child with every singly kind of disability? Absolutely not,” said Megan Benay, senior national director of data systems and strategy at Great Oaks Charter Schools, a network of charter schools that focuses on preparing kids for college through personalized tutoring. “As far as I see it, the only path forward is to figure out how to invest in our people and invest in the kind of ongoing professional learning that provides practical, applicable research-infused training into the daily practice of our educators. This is hard because the reality of teaching is that you’re on every hour of the day, you’re lesson-planning, you’re calling parents, you’re writing curriculum. Oh, and then you have to figure out how to fit in eating lunch somewhere in there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ace Parsi, senior consultant with Equity Journey Partners and the former director of innovation for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that if school districts don’t invest in teachers while making the shift to personalized learning, they are bound to fail. “It’s not that educators don’t want to try personalized learning. But it’s a vulnerable feeling when you’re trying to implement this new thing and you’re like: ‘Oh my god, how do I approach this for these students, I just don’t have the skill set to do this’,” he said. “It’s really incumbent on school districts and states to create a professional learning system that meets the educators and empowers them to actually implement personalized learning for all kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57296\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin Elementary School seen here before the COVID-19 pandemic, credits personalized learning for helping to improve student engagement. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin, the school on Chicago’s northwest side that Alanni and Arianna attend, has heard teachers make comparisons between personalized learning and the IEPs that drive special education. “My teachers say: ‘It’s almost like all our students have an IEP’ — not formally, of course, but they each do have an individualized plan,” said Stewart. “It’s always evolving; it’s a very living document.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart, though, cautions against drawing too-direct parallels between IEPs and the individual learner profiles her school uses, also known as personalized learning plans. IEPs are rigid legal documents, written not for students so much as for teachers, parents and lawyers. Individual learner profiles, she said, aim to involve parents in their children’s learning but also give students more control over their own education. At her school, students lead learner meetings at least twice a year where they give a presentation to their parents about their progress, goals and challenges. That’s different from IEP meetings, which are led by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart embraced personalized learning even before the Chicago school district began to do so. A few years after joining Belmont-Cragin in 2010, she turned to the approach to help close achievement gaps at her school, where the student body is predominantly Hispanic and low-income, and roughly \u003ca href=\"https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoolprofile/schooldetails.aspx?SchoolId=609922\">68 percent\u003c/a> of students are English language learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the results are good. Between the 2015-16 and 2018-19 school years, attainment levels for third through eighth graders on the standardized Measures of Academic Progress test rose from 35 to 65 percent in reading and from 30 to 66 percent in math. Student growth in reading and math was far above average: in the 95th and 98th percentiles, respectively. Between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years, teacher retention grew from 60 to 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, personalized learning has many facets, some of which are reminiscent of special education. One is to involve families in their children’s learning. In special education, under legal mandates, parental input and the recommendations of educators and therapists must receive \u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/playing-a-role-in-the-iep-process\">equal consideration\u003c/a>. Stewart said she has found that parental involvement has been key to her students’ learning, because it gives teachers greater insight into their students’ needs and turns parents into partners in their children’s education. But she doesn’t limit it to scheduled meetings in an office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One weekday morning before the pandemic shuttered school buildings, students gathered in an ageing auditorium for their daily morning assembly. One student read morning announcements in English and her partner made the same announcements in Spanish. The audience, a raucous, cheerful gathering of the entire school’s elementary-age students, plus more than a dozen parents, some with toddlers or babies scooting around nearby, greeted each announcement with cheering and hollering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57297\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before the pandemic, students at Belmont-Cragin often lead morning assemblies, part of an effort by the school to give young people more control over their own learning. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart and her team began encouraging parents to join the morning assemblies a few years ago. Her colleagues also started “bring your parent to school” days in which parents were invited into the classroom to see how their kids learned; they created a parent leadership team and trained parent mentors who visited students in classrooms. Before the pandemic, Belmont-Cragin also sent teachers out on “empathy walks,” when they spent an entire day joining students at their homes early in the morning, and traveling with them to school and then back home again to see how evenings unfolded. This was important, Stewart explained, because it helped teachers get a stronger sense of what motivated students and thus, how to better guide them into meaningful learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the classrooms at Belmont-Cragin are personalized to students’ needs. Some have gentler lighting — twinkling holiday lights in lieu of flickering overhead lights. Seating options range from bean bags to structured armchairs; students can choose to study alone in quiet workspaces near a lava lamp or a bubbling fish tank, or in groups at clusters of desks and tables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gross, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said one way in which special education goes awry is by becoming too compliance-oriented, with teachers struggling simply to fulfill the system’s legal and paperwork requirements. “The compliance requirements are intense and numerous and it’s very easy to fall into a compliance mindset,” she said. The schools that succeed in educating kids with disabilities are engaged not simply in following the legal rules but in finding the best way to serve each student; that same spirit will be key to tackling personalized learning, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, educators around the country are finding that it’s virtually impossible to do personalized instruction without relying heavily on technology — for good or ill. Otherwise, the burden of having kids learning at different paces within one classroom is too great. “I find it difficult to find a district doing personalized learning where tech is not the top two or three things they’re doing,” said Sean J. Smith, professor of special education at the University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ideally every student would have a teacher, but that’s simply not a possibility,” said John Pane, a senior scientist at the research organization RAND who has studied personalized learning. “It would be way too costly.” And that’s where tech tools come in, by making it easier for kids to learn at different paces, and focus on different goals, within a single class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57301\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CICS West Belden uses Summit, an online learning platform that has drawn criticism from some parents who worry about excessive screen time. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CICS West Belden, a pre-K-8 school not far from Stewart’s elementary that is part of the Chicago International Charter School network, began rethinking its teaching model some six years ago. The school started with an initial push into blended learning, a teaching approach that aims to integrate online with traditional face-to-face learning, said Colleen Collins, the school director. Since then, Collins and her teachers — after receiving several grants, including a $100,000 technology planning grant and a Breakthrough Schools Next Generation Learning Challenges personalized learning grant — began working with LEAP to start personalized learning for each grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an eighth grade science class well before the pandemic hit, students were grouped at a variety of workstations. Some were seated on stools around tall desks, some worked at regular-height tables with traditional classroom chairs, others were on their feet working at standing desks. Each student was bent over a Dell Chromebook using Summit Learning software, a widely used online learning platform developed by the charter network Summit Public Schools with help from Facebook software engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students David Diaz and Emani Torres had been using Summit software at CICS West Belden since sixth grade. They sat side-by-side at a two-person desk facing a bulletin board on the far side of the classroom, each working through different lessons at their own pace. A small yellow rubber duck sat on the desk between them, a stress-buster toy for whenever students need to work out some energy by squeezing something cute. Torres and Diaz described their feelings about using Summit learning software as a sort of love-hate relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like working independently and I can really go above and beyond,” said Diaz, his eyes glued to his laptop where an article titled “Creating Dramatic Tension” filled the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres, on the other hand, said she misses a more traditional way of learning. “This is stressful, honestly. It’s so many deadlines and a lot more work,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But, I guess it does keep you engaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alanni, the eighth grader at Belmont-Cragin, which also uses Summit and other online platforms, said she tired of all the time spent in front of a computer. “I do prefer working on paper just because it really hurts my eyes and it makes you sleepy and less motivated when you are on the computer for such a long time,” she said. Alanni said teachers would sometimes accommodate her by printing out lesson plans from the computer program and allowing her to complete the lessons offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, Summit has drawn protests from parents and students in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksn.com/news/local/mcpherson-students-protest-against-summit-learning-platform-tuesday-afternoon/\">Kansas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/20/why-parents-students-are-protesting-an-online-learning-program-backed-by-mark-zuckerberg-facebook/\">New York City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/17/students-protest-zuckerberg-backed-digital-learning-program-ask-him-what-gives-you-this-right/\">Connecticut\u003c/a> who worry about excessive screen time, among other concerns. It remains to be seen how much the pandemic and remote learning will influence students’ and educators’ appetite for screen time and new tech tools that might help students who’ve fallen behind catch up. Smith and other researchers say tech can be good or bad, depending on how schools choose to use it. Technology should supplement, not supplant, the teacher, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At CICS West Belden, director Collins said the school never introduces students to new concepts through technology. “The best experience a child will have each day is the interaction with their teachers in small groups tailored to who they are,” she said. “Tech makes a lot of personalized learning possible, it helps us keep a close eye on progress, but it shouldn’t be the main experience students have each day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, despite the parallels between personalized learning and special education, educators are still trying to unravel how the new approach can effectively serve students with disabilities. The hope is that individualizing education across the board would bring big benefits for students served by special education. By helping educators recognize that there is no such thing as an “average” or “typical” student, and that brain differences are normal, personalized learning could de-stigmatize, and improve, education for students with disabilities, education experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reframing that the general inclusion movement for students with disabilities has been trying to accomplish for some time now,” said Laura Stelitano, an associate policy researcher at RAND. “But simply saying that all students with disabilities need to be included is a little different from saying all students have unique ways of learning and that learning needs to be tailored. It maybe takes inclusion a step forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some schools, this appears to be happening. Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, which serves middle school and high school students in New York, has embraced personalized learning. At the same time, it is gaining a reputation for serving kids with disabilities well — unusual among charter schools, which are frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/charter-schools-more-likely-to-ignore-special-education-applicants-study-finds/2018/12\">criticized\u003c/a> for pushing out students with complex learning needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As somebody whose own profile as a learner was pretty darn jagged, I’m a big believer that we need to design and run schools in a way that leverages what special education has to offer,” said Eric Tucker, the Brooklyn school’s co-founder. “That means thinking through how we process information, how we learn, how we fill in language acquisition and processing gaps, while pushing for a level of rigor and inclusion for all young people that reflects what they’re really capable of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, for example, every student, regardless of academic standing, receives small-group instruction for two hours a day. This has the dual benefit of helping students who are behind without making it obvious to their peers, while also enabling teachers to help high-achieving students go farther and deeper into the curriculum. It’s a leveler, of sorts, and a confidence-builder for children with disabilities who’ve traditionally been either pulled out of the classroom for special services or received “push-in” support in the classroom from therapists and special education teachers, according to Tucker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet personalized learning has a long way to go when it comes to living up to the promise of improving education for kids with disabilities. Parsi, the consultant who formerly worked for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that children with disabilities have often been overlooked as states implement personalized learning. When the NCLD \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">examined how personalized learning was being developed in three states\u003c/a> — Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire — researchers found that “there was a lot of retrofitting happening,” he said. “They would say, ‘We’re doing personalized learning for all,’ and then they would implement it in a most generic way. And then they would realize, ‘Oh my god, our kids with disabilities aren’t doing any better, they’re actually struggling more.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parsi said that goes back to the idea that schools and school systems aren’t spending enough time ensuring that general education teachers have the skills to meet students’ individual needs, including the kids with disabilities. Meanwhile, he added, “The special educators don’t get training to do this type of more personalized, deeper approach to learning. And the two don’t collaborate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s concerning, to be sure. Still, advocates for personalized learning and researchers hope that the best models will proliferate, and that the personalized approach could ultimately avoid some of the pitfalls of special education while lifting learning for all. “If we have a system that is set up to individualize [education] for all students, we’re more likely to get quality special education,” said Stelitano of RAND. “The system just requires the right resources and the right training for teachers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Caroline Preston contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "As educators seek to help students recover learning lost in the pandemic, they are turning to more personalized methods and finding inspiration in special education. But if anything, special education demonstrates the challenges of individualizing instruction. How can we apply lessons from special education, such as the use of Individual Education Programs, or IEPs, to personalized learning?",
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"description": "As educators seek to help students recover learning lost in the pandemic, they are turning to more personalized methods and finding inspiration in special education. But if anything, special education demonstrates the challenges of individualizing instruction. How can we apply lessons from special education, such as the use of Individual Education Programs, or IEPs, to personalized learning?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a shelf in her Chicago classroom, third grader Arianna has a thick binder that details her achievements, strengths and goals as a student, along with some revealing information about her personality. It describes her love of guitar and singing and notes that she wants to advance to a higher level in reading and grasp math concepts more quickly. Her sister, Alanni, an eighth grader, has a binder too. It discusses her grades and standardized test scores, as well as her academic goals: to speak up more frequently in math class and read texts more closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The binders resemble, to a degree, the individualized education programs, or IEPs, that are at the heart of education for students with disabilities. But Arianna and Alanni aren’t special education students. Every child at their pre-K-8 school, Belmont-Cragin, has one of these so-called individual learner profiles. The profiles are part of the school’s embrace of personalized learning, which centers on the belief that a teacher lecturing at the front of a classroom is a bad fit for today’s students. Instead, the thinking goes, students must be encouraged to learn at their own pace, with lessons tailored to their specific aptitudes and needs, often with the aid of technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized learning has, in recent years, become one of the most talked-about trends in education. Fueled by donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists, the instructional approach has spread to classrooms around the country and more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">40 states are exploring it in some form\u003c/a>. As education leaders cast about for solutions to the performance gaps exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hitting upon the idea that more personalized methods could help schools better serve students who’ve had wildly different experiences with education this year. In the process, they are finding inspiration in special education, which, since the 1975 passage of what’s now known as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, has promised students with disabilities special services and accommodations to help them learn at their full potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can you imagine the power of an individualized education plan for every student?” Richard Carranza, New York City’s education chancellor, \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/10/22168384/nyc-schools-covid-learning-loss\">said recently\u003c/a> in discussing his agency’s plans for new tools to help students recover the learning they’ve lost during school closures. “Just think about identifying the explicit skills that students need to work on and the plan that we have to help them achieve a mastery of that explicit skill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are plenty of reasons to be cautious. If anything, special education demonstrates the vast challenges of individualizing education. Tailoring learning to students’ exact needs takes significant resources, teacher training and, ideally, close collaboration with families — something many schools struggle to pull off. While there are limits to comparisons between the two educational approaches — special education is legally mandated and personalized learning is a loosely defined pedagogical philosophy that takes many forms — some of the cracks that have appeared in personalized learning are not unlike those facing special education. Both types of education, for example, require significant resources and trained staff — but often don’t get either. Schools introducing personalized learning have faced criticism for relying on technology to help kids learn at different paces within the same classroom as districts avoid having to drastically scale up their staff; staff shortages have long been \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/A_Coming_Crisis_in_Teaching_REPORT.pdf\">endemic in special education\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, for all the hype around personalized learning, evidence of its success remains scant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School systems and schools have struggled to deliver on the promise of special education,” said Betheny Gross, associate director of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education. “It isn’t just a matter of taking the principles of special education and doing them at scale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57300\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57300\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED9_2492-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students at CICS West Belden often work in small groups or with the help of technology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At present, roughly 7 million students, or \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp\">14 percent\u003c/a> of public schoolchildren, are enrolled in special education nationwide. As personalized learning advocates push forward with plans to roll out their approach to many more of the nation’s schoolchildren, it’s worth considering how lessons from 45 years of educating students with disabilities might help shape this latest educational experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One morning in 2019, close to 40 educators gathered in a commercial building on the Chicago riverfront that houses the offices of LEAP Innovations. LEAP is a nonprofit organization that trains schools and teachers to use personalized learning in their classrooms. The day’s professional development for these Chicago Public Schools teachers, alumni of the program, was a refresher, a way to strengthen their teaching practice, share ideas and return to the classroom newly inspired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago has embraced personalized learning in a big way. In early 2018, Chicago Public Schools and LEAP received $14 million in grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to train teachers and principals on personalizing learning. (CZI is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.) The grant funding provided 35 city schools with two-and-a-half years of professional development and instructional coaching through LEAP, plus technology and classroom resources, via the school district’s \u003ca href=\"https://practices.learningaccelerator.org/artifacts/the-chicago-public-schools-elevate-program\">Elevate Program\u003c/a>, which aims to bring personalized learning to 150 Chicago schools by the end of 2021. Concurrently, a portion of the funding went to LEAP to help train principals and teachers at more than 100 Chicago-area schools on personalized learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a morning of workshops on topics like helping students puzzle through problems, working in teams and designing learning goals, teachers broke for lunch that day in 2019, gathering around large tables to chat. At one table, the conversation turned to the growing pains of changing course from the traditional “sage on a stage” teaching model, where a teacher holds forth at the front of the classroom while students listen, to a student-focused, personalized model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started this process five years ago and all I could think was: ‘Oh my god, this is going to be a nightmare!’ Because I thought this would mean that, on top of everything I was already doing, I’d be creating an IEP for every single student,” said Kathleen Bourret, a teacher at R.H. Lee Elementary, a Pre-K-8 school on Chicago’s southwest side. “I didn’t have the mindset to make this shift. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, and now you’re gonna make me do what?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bourret’s learning curve when it came to personalized learning is pretty typical for teachers, said Chris Liang-Vergara, who was then serving as LEAP’s chief of learning innovation. And it’s something the people at LEAP try to alleviate by bringing in past cohorts, like that day’s group, to mingle and continue sharing ideas and inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s definitely not always rainbows and sunshine,” said Liang-Vergara. “Keeping that honest and real is important. You don’t say: ‘I’m going to do personalized learning and it’s going to be beautiful.’ There’s a real shift that happens with you as a professional, with your kids in the classroom, and that change process takes time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57298\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57298\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1.jpeg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED7_2509-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colleen Collins, school director at CICS West Belden, works with students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The shift in mindset involves moving away from a teaching model that is centered on curriculum and meeting benchmarks toward being student-centered in ways that demand differentiated instruction based on a child’s interests, strengths, weaknesses and background. Students often work in small groups, with help from a co-teacher, or one-on-one, with lessons fitted to their skills and abilities. In theory, their progress is tracked closely, with their goals and assignments updated continually to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of this may sound familiar to teachers of special education. As part of their jobs, special education teachers assess students and develop teaching plans based on each student’s skill levels. They teach students as a class and one-on-one or in small groups. They collaborate with school-based service providers such as occupational, physical and speech therapists, in order to cull reams of information and write IEPs that, often, run more than ten double-sided pages, and ideally provide detailed documentation of a child’s strengths, weaknesses and goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teachers often come unprepared to do this work, and don’t get the support they need from their schools and districts, in part because special education is \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-the-feds-still-fall-short-on-special-education-funding/2020/01\">chronically underfunded\u003c/a>. They may struggle to assess students’ abilities and needs, education researchers say, and \u003ca href=\"https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/tchr-ret/cresource/q1/p01/\">turnover\u003c/a> for special education teachers tends to be high. The paperwork involved can be overwhelming. All of this suggests that if personalized learning is to succeed, it must emphasize supporting teachers and investing in their professional development, say education experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get a master’s degree in special education, do you come out knowing how to teach every single child with every singly kind of disability? Absolutely not,” said Megan Benay, senior national director of data systems and strategy at Great Oaks Charter Schools, a network of charter schools that focuses on preparing kids for college through personalized tutoring. “As far as I see it, the only path forward is to figure out how to invest in our people and invest in the kind of ongoing professional learning that provides practical, applicable research-infused training into the daily practice of our educators. This is hard because the reality of teaching is that you’re on every hour of the day, you’re lesson-planning, you’re calling parents, you’re writing curriculum. Oh, and then you have to figure out how to fit in eating lunch somewhere in there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ace Parsi, senior consultant with Equity Journey Partners and the former director of innovation for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that if school districts don’t invest in teachers while making the shift to personalized learning, they are bound to fail. “It’s not that educators don’t want to try personalized learning. But it’s a vulnerable feeling when you’re trying to implement this new thing and you’re like: ‘Oh my god, how do I approach this for these students, I just don’t have the skill set to do this’,” he said. “It’s really incumbent on school districts and states to create a professional learning system that meets the educators and empowers them to actually implement personalized learning for all kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57296\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57296\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED5_2478-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin Elementary School seen here before the COVID-19 pandemic, credits personalized learning for helping to improve student engagement. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stacy Stewart, principal of Belmont-Cragin, the school on Chicago’s northwest side that Alanni and Arianna attend, has heard teachers make comparisons between personalized learning and the IEPs that drive special education. “My teachers say: ‘It’s almost like all our students have an IEP’ — not formally, of course, but they each do have an individualized plan,” said Stewart. “It’s always evolving; it’s a very living document.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart, though, cautions against drawing too-direct parallels between IEPs and the individual learner profiles her school uses, also known as personalized learning plans. IEPs are rigid legal documents, written not for students so much as for teachers, parents and lawyers. Individual learner profiles, she said, aim to involve parents in their children’s learning but also give students more control over their own education. At her school, students lead learner meetings at least twice a year where they give a presentation to their parents about their progress, goals and challenges. That’s different from IEP meetings, which are led by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stewart embraced personalized learning even before the Chicago school district began to do so. A few years after joining Belmont-Cragin in 2010, she turned to the approach to help close achievement gaps at her school, where the student body is predominantly Hispanic and low-income, and roughly \u003ca href=\"https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoolprofile/schooldetails.aspx?SchoolId=609922\">68 percent\u003c/a> of students are English language learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the results are good. Between the 2015-16 and 2018-19 school years, attainment levels for third through eighth graders on the standardized Measures of Academic Progress test rose from 35 to 65 percent in reading and from 30 to 66 percent in math. Student growth in reading and math was far above average: in the 95th and 98th percentiles, respectively. Between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years, teacher retention grew from 60 to 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, personalized learning has many facets, some of which are reminiscent of special education. One is to involve families in their children’s learning. In special education, under legal mandates, parental input and the recommendations of educators and therapists must receive \u003ca href=\"https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/playing-a-role-in-the-iep-process\">equal consideration\u003c/a>. Stewart said she has found that parental involvement has been key to her students’ learning, because it gives teachers greater insight into their students’ needs and turns parents into partners in their children’s education. But she doesn’t limit it to scheduled meetings in an office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One weekday morning before the pandemic shuttered school buildings, students gathered in an ageing auditorium for their daily morning assembly. One student read morning announcements in English and her partner made the same announcements in Spanish. The audience, a raucous, cheerful gathering of the entire school’s elementary-age students, plus more than a dozen parents, some with toddlers or babies scooting around nearby, greeted each announcement with cheering and hollering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57297\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57297\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1.jpeg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED6_2471-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before the pandemic, students at Belmont-Cragin often lead morning assemblies, part of an effort by the school to give young people more control over their own learning. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stewart and her team began encouraging parents to join the morning assemblies a few years ago. Her colleagues also started “bring your parent to school” days in which parents were invited into the classroom to see how their kids learned; they created a parent leadership team and trained parent mentors who visited students in classrooms. Before the pandemic, Belmont-Cragin also sent teachers out on “empathy walks,” when they spent an entire day joining students at their homes early in the morning, and traveling with them to school and then back home again to see how evenings unfolded. This was important, Stewart explained, because it helped teachers get a stronger sense of what motivated students and thus, how to better guide them into meaningful learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the classrooms at Belmont-Cragin are personalized to students’ needs. Some have gentler lighting — twinkling holiday lights in lieu of flickering overhead lights. Seating options range from bean bags to structured armchairs; students can choose to study alone in quiet workspaces near a lava lamp or a bubbling fish tank, or in groups at clusters of desks and tables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gross, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said one way in which special education goes awry is by becoming too compliance-oriented, with teachers struggling simply to fulfill the system’s legal and paperwork requirements. “The compliance requirements are intense and numerous and it’s very easy to fall into a compliance mindset,” she said. The schools that succeed in educating kids with disabilities are engaged not simply in following the legal rules but in finding the best way to serve each student; that same spirit will be key to tackling personalized learning, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, educators around the country are finding that it’s virtually impossible to do personalized instruction without relying heavily on technology — for good or ill. Otherwise, the burden of having kids learning at different paces within one classroom is too great. “I find it difficult to find a district doing personalized learning where tech is not the top two or three things they’re doing,” said Sean J. Smith, professor of special education at the University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ideally every student would have a teacher, but that’s simply not a possibility,” said John Pane, a senior scientist at the research organization RAND who has studied personalized learning. “It would be way too costly.” And that’s where tech tools come in, by making it easier for kids to learn at different paces, and focus on different goals, within a single class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57301\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57301\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1.jpeg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/GonserSPED10_2499-scaled-1-768x576.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CICS West Belden uses Summit, an online learning platform that has drawn criticism from some parents who worry about excessive screen time. \u003ccite>(Sarah Gonser for The Hechinger Report )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CICS West Belden, a pre-K-8 school not far from Stewart’s elementary that is part of the Chicago International Charter School network, began rethinking its teaching model some six years ago. The school started with an initial push into blended learning, a teaching approach that aims to integrate online with traditional face-to-face learning, said Colleen Collins, the school director. Since then, Collins and her teachers — after receiving several grants, including a $100,000 technology planning grant and a Breakthrough Schools Next Generation Learning Challenges personalized learning grant — began working with LEAP to start personalized learning for each grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an eighth grade science class well before the pandemic hit, students were grouped at a variety of workstations. Some were seated on stools around tall desks, some worked at regular-height tables with traditional classroom chairs, others were on their feet working at standing desks. Each student was bent over a Dell Chromebook using Summit Learning software, a widely used online learning platform developed by the charter network Summit Public Schools with help from Facebook software engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students David Diaz and Emani Torres had been using Summit software at CICS West Belden since sixth grade. They sat side-by-side at a two-person desk facing a bulletin board on the far side of the classroom, each working through different lessons at their own pace. A small yellow rubber duck sat on the desk between them, a stress-buster toy for whenever students need to work out some energy by squeezing something cute. Torres and Diaz described their feelings about using Summit learning software as a sort of love-hate relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like working independently and I can really go above and beyond,” said Diaz, his eyes glued to his laptop where an article titled “Creating Dramatic Tension” filled the screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Torres, on the other hand, said she misses a more traditional way of learning. “This is stressful, honestly. It’s so many deadlines and a lot more work,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But, I guess it does keep you engaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alanni, the eighth grader at Belmont-Cragin, which also uses Summit and other online platforms, said she tired of all the time spent in front of a computer. “I do prefer working on paper just because it really hurts my eyes and it makes you sleepy and less motivated when you are on the computer for such a long time,” she said. Alanni said teachers would sometimes accommodate her by printing out lesson plans from the computer program and allowing her to complete the lessons offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, Summit has drawn protests from parents and students in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksn.com/news/local/mcpherson-students-protest-against-summit-learning-platform-tuesday-afternoon/\">Kansas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/20/why-parents-students-are-protesting-an-online-learning-program-backed-by-mark-zuckerberg-facebook/\">New York City\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/17/students-protest-zuckerberg-backed-digital-learning-program-ask-him-what-gives-you-this-right/\">Connecticut\u003c/a> who worry about excessive screen time, among other concerns. It remains to be seen how much the pandemic and remote learning will influence students’ and educators’ appetite for screen time and new tech tools that might help students who’ve fallen behind catch up. Smith and other researchers say tech can be good or bad, depending on how schools choose to use it. Technology should supplement, not supplant, the teacher, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At CICS West Belden, director Collins said the school never introduces students to new concepts through technology. “The best experience a child will have each day is the interaction with their teachers in small groups tailored to who they are,” she said. “Tech makes a lot of personalized learning possible, it helps us keep a close eye on progress, but it shouldn’t be the main experience students have each day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, despite the parallels between personalized learning and special education, educators are still trying to unravel how the new approach can effectively serve students with disabilities. The hope is that individualizing education across the board would bring big benefits for students served by special education. By helping educators recognize that there is no such thing as an “average” or “typical” student, and that brain differences are normal, personalized learning could de-stigmatize, and improve, education for students with disabilities, education experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reframing that the general inclusion movement for students with disabilities has been trying to accomplish for some time now,” said Laura Stelitano, an associate policy researcher at RAND. “But simply saying that all students with disabilities need to be included is a little different from saying all students have unique ways of learning and that learning needs to be tailored. It maybe takes inclusion a step forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some schools, this appears to be happening. Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, which serves middle school and high school students in New York, has embraced personalized learning. At the same time, it is gaining a reputation for serving kids with disabilities well — unusual among charter schools, which are frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/charter-schools-more-likely-to-ignore-special-education-applicants-study-finds/2018/12\">criticized\u003c/a> for pushing out students with complex learning needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As somebody whose own profile as a learner was pretty darn jagged, I’m a big believer that we need to design and run schools in a way that leverages what special education has to offer,” said Eric Tucker, the Brooklyn school’s co-founder. “That means thinking through how we process information, how we learn, how we fill in language acquisition and processing gaps, while pushing for a level of rigor and inclusion for all young people that reflects what they’re really capable of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school, for example, every student, regardless of academic standing, receives small-group instruction for two hours a day. This has the dual benefit of helping students who are behind without making it obvious to their peers, while also enabling teachers to help high-achieving students go farther and deeper into the curriculum. It’s a leveler, of sorts, and a confidence-builder for children with disabilities who’ve traditionally been either pulled out of the classroom for special services or received “push-in” support in the classroom from therapists and special education teachers, according to Tucker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet personalized learning has a long way to go when it comes to living up to the promise of improving education for kids with disabilities. Parsi, the consultant who formerly worked for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said that children with disabilities have often been overlooked as states implement personalized learning. When the NCLD \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncld.org/research/personalized-learning/state-landscape\">examined how personalized learning was being developed in three states\u003c/a> — Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire — researchers found that “there was a lot of retrofitting happening,” he said. “They would say, ‘We’re doing personalized learning for all,’ and then they would implement it in a most generic way. And then they would realize, ‘Oh my god, our kids with disabilities aren’t doing any better, they’re actually struggling more.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parsi said that goes back to the idea that schools and school systems aren’t spending enough time ensuring that general education teachers have the skills to meet students’ individual needs, including the kids with disabilities. Meanwhile, he added, “The special educators don’t get training to do this type of more personalized, deeper approach to learning. And the two don’t collaborate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s concerning, to be sure. Still, advocates for personalized learning and researchers hope that the best models will proliferate, and that the personalized approach could ultimately avoid some of the pitfalls of special education while lifting learning for all. “If we have a system that is set up to individualize [education] for all students, we’re more likely to get quality special education,” said Stelitano of RAND. “The system just requires the right resources and the right training for teachers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Caroline Preston contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This story about \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Zo5GCOYZQziNogWotExyBT?domain=hechingerreport.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>IEPs \u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>was produced by\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pfwrCPNYRAu0q2pqT0zP2Z?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> The Hechinger Report\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4a0ECQWOVBTXmK0mUMmpzp?domain=urldefense.proofpoint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci> Hechinger newsletter here\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Biden Announces Executive Actions Meant To Help Reopen School Buildings",
"title": "Biden Announces Executive Actions Meant To Help Reopen School Buildings",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Biden has called reopening schools a \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/909337949/biden-calls-school-reopening-a-national-emergency\">national emergency\u003c/a>\" and said he wants to see most K-12 schools in the United States \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/29/951254331/biden-again-criticizes-trumps-covid-response-vows-to-speed-vaccine-production\">open during his first 100 days\u003c/a> in office, which would be between now and April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1352280291088457731\">he announced\u003c/a> he would sign several executive actions, including measures meant to push the process along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These come after actions signed on Wednesday geared toward improving college access and providing relief for student loan borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are the details of Thursday's actions, as announced by the White House:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More personal protective equipment: \u003c/strong> Schools will be eligible for full reimbursement for supplies such as masks, gowns and gloves through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More testing: \u003c/strong>A Pandemic Testing Board will use the Defense Production Act and other means to produce and distribute more tests, including for schools. Workplaces with the resources, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-testing-stars-cameras-roll-again-new-cottage-industry-emerges-n1242778\">such as movie sets\u003c/a>, have relied on frequent and rapid testing to operate safely during the pandemic, but access to tests for teachers and students has been limited by budgets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vaccines for teachers: \u003c/strong>The actions expand vaccine capacity in several ways; equitable distribution to teachers in particular is mentioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Better data: \u003c/strong>Up until now, there has been no centralized, national data collection of coronavirus cases or outbreaks in schools. \"I'm not sure there's a role at the department to collect and compile that research,\" former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos \u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-10-20/betsy-devos-not-my-job-to-track-schools-coronavirus-reopening-plans\">said in October\u003c/a>. This makes it difficult to appropriately trace, isolate or even to understand the impact of school openings on the course of the pandemic, or the efficacy of various safety protocols. Many states and districts have their own reporting and dashboards, and there are some decentralized volunteer efforts. Among Thursday's actions is a call for the Education and Health and Human Services departments to take a more aggressive role in collecting, aggregating, analyzing and reporting data and best practices to help schools and businesses reopen safely. That includes collecting data on the equity impacts of prolonged school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These moves come as the organization Burbio reports more than half of the country's students are learning from home. Large districts, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-to-vote-whether-to-reject-in-person-school-and-move-toward-a-potential-strike/6a85b1bf-3d52-4c0e-9f80-c675be3718d8\">in Chicago\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fairfax-county-public-schools-delays-in-person-instruction\">Fairfax County, Va\u003c/a>., are struggling to bring large numbers of students back for the first time this school year, while others \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/coronavirus-schools-georgia.html\">are closing because of staffing shortages\u003c/a> brought on by waves of quarantines. And there are worries over whether new variants of the coronavirus might spread even more quickly, overwhelming the safety precautions currently in place in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the actions announced Thursday, which focused on K-12 school reopenings amid the pandemic, Biden signed several executive actions on his first day in office relating to education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/\">affirmed the rights\u003c/a> of children to access school restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, an issue that made news when DeVos \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516858583/whats-next-for-transgender-rights-lawsuits-with-school-guidance-rescinded\">rescinded similar Obama-era guidance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the higher education front, Biden took actions that would make it easier for certain students to go to college, and provide relief to student loan borrowers during the pandemic:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>College access: \u003c/strong>Biden issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-ending-discriminatory-bans-on-entry-to-the-united-states/\">a proclamation ending the so-called Muslim travel ban\u003c/a>, which barred entry to the U.S. of citizens from some majority-Muslim countries. The president also ordered the State Department to begin processing visas. Both moves should help colleges attract more international students after \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/912669406/enrollment-by-international-students-in-u-s-colleges-plummets\">a massive decline in enrollment \u003c/a>during the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new action \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/preserving-and-fortifying-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca/\">strengthening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program\u003c/a>, or DACA, gives legal protections to people who came to the U.S. as children. Colleges have long supported the program, which has helped many DREAMers enroll in college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student loans: \u003c/strong>Following an executive action signed Wednesday, the Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live-updates/2021/01/20/958845207/president-biden-will-extend-student-loan-payment-freeze-through-september-30\">extended pandemic relief from payments for about 41 million federal student loan borrowers \u003c/a>through Sept. 30. \"Too many Americans are struggling to pay for basic necessities and to provide for their families,\" the Education Department said in a statement. \"They should not be forced to choose between paying their student loans and putting food on the table.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Biden+Announces+Executive+Actions+Meant+To+Help+Reopen+Schools&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Biden has called reopening schools a \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/909337949/biden-calls-school-reopening-a-national-emergency\">national emergency\u003c/a>\" and said he wants to see most K-12 schools in the United States \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/29/951254331/biden-again-criticizes-trumps-covid-response-vows-to-speed-vaccine-production\">open during his first 100 days\u003c/a> in office, which would be between now and April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1352280291088457731\">he announced\u003c/a> he would sign several executive actions, including measures meant to push the process along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These come after actions signed on Wednesday geared toward improving college access and providing relief for student loan borrowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are the details of Thursday's actions, as announced by the White House:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More personal protective equipment: \u003c/strong> Schools will be eligible for full reimbursement for supplies such as masks, gowns and gloves through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More testing: \u003c/strong>A Pandemic Testing Board will use the Defense Production Act and other means to produce and distribute more tests, including for schools. Workplaces with the resources, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-testing-stars-cameras-roll-again-new-cottage-industry-emerges-n1242778\">such as movie sets\u003c/a>, have relied on frequent and rapid testing to operate safely during the pandemic, but access to tests for teachers and students has been limited by budgets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Vaccines for teachers: \u003c/strong>The actions expand vaccine capacity in several ways; equitable distribution to teachers in particular is mentioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Better data: \u003c/strong>Up until now, there has been no centralized, national data collection of coronavirus cases or outbreaks in schools. \"I'm not sure there's a role at the department to collect and compile that research,\" former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos \u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-10-20/betsy-devos-not-my-job-to-track-schools-coronavirus-reopening-plans\">said in October\u003c/a>. This makes it difficult to appropriately trace, isolate or even to understand the impact of school openings on the course of the pandemic, or the efficacy of various safety protocols. Many states and districts have their own reporting and dashboards, and there are some decentralized volunteer efforts. Among Thursday's actions is a call for the Education and Health and Human Services departments to take a more aggressive role in collecting, aggregating, analyzing and reporting data and best practices to help schools and businesses reopen safely. That includes collecting data on the equity impacts of prolonged school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These moves come as the organization Burbio reports more than half of the country's students are learning from home. Large districts, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-to-vote-whether-to-reject-in-person-school-and-move-toward-a-potential-strike/6a85b1bf-3d52-4c0e-9f80-c675be3718d8\">in Chicago\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fairfax-county-public-schools-delays-in-person-instruction\">Fairfax County, Va\u003c/a>., are struggling to bring large numbers of students back for the first time this school year, while others \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/coronavirus-schools-georgia.html\">are closing because of staffing shortages\u003c/a> brought on by waves of quarantines. And there are worries over whether new variants of the coronavirus might spread even more quickly, overwhelming the safety precautions currently in place in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the actions announced Thursday, which focused on K-12 school reopenings amid the pandemic, Biden signed several executive actions on his first day in office relating to education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/\">affirmed the rights\u003c/a> of children to access school restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, an issue that made news when DeVos \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516858583/whats-next-for-transgender-rights-lawsuits-with-school-guidance-rescinded\">rescinded similar Obama-era guidance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the higher education front, Biden took actions that would make it easier for certain students to go to college, and provide relief to student loan borrowers during the pandemic:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>College access: \u003c/strong>Biden issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-ending-discriminatory-bans-on-entry-to-the-united-states/\">a proclamation ending the so-called Muslim travel ban\u003c/a>, which barred entry to the U.S. of citizens from some majority-Muslim countries. The president also ordered the State Department to begin processing visas. Both moves should help colleges attract more international students after \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/912669406/enrollment-by-international-students-in-u-s-colleges-plummets\">a massive decline in enrollment \u003c/a>during the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new action \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/preserving-and-fortifying-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca/\">strengthening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program\u003c/a>, or DACA, gives legal protections to people who came to the U.S. as children. Colleges have long supported the program, which has helped many DREAMers enroll in college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student loans: \u003c/strong>Following an executive action signed Wednesday, the Education Department \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live-updates/2021/01/20/958845207/president-biden-will-extend-student-loan-payment-freeze-through-september-30\">extended pandemic relief from payments for about 41 million federal student loan borrowers \u003c/a>through Sept. 30. \"Too many Americans are struggling to pay for basic necessities and to provide for their families,\" the Education Department said in a statement. \"They should not be forced to choose between paying their student loans and putting food on the table.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Biden+Announces+Executive+Actions+Meant+To+Help+Reopen+Schools&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Biden will issue an executive order asking the Education Department to extend pandemic relief for about 41 million federal student loan borrowers through Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2020, borrowers were granted a reprieve on their loan payments — interest was set to 0% and collections of defaulted federal student loans were paused. Congress initiated this relief in the CARES Act. Both President Donald Trump and, later, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, extended it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Biden's executive order, expected later today, the relief was set to expire on Jan. 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The back and forth on deadlines has been a challenge for borrowers. Research from Pew conducted in August and September found that, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/04/943293547/education-dept-extends-student-loan-payment-freeze-through-january\">among borrowers who said the relief applied to them\u003c/a>, about 40% did not know when their loan payments were set to resume. That research also found that borrowers are struggling financially due to the pandemic: Almost 6 in 10 borrowers with paused payments reported to Pew that it would be difficult to begin making their payments if they had to do so in the next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the extension for the next eight months, borrowers and loan servicers now have a longer runway to prepare for when repayment starts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The extension of the payment pauses provides much needed relief to borrowers during the pandemic in the short-term,\" says Sarah Sattelmeyer, director of the Pew Charitable Trust's Student Borrower Success project. The big question now is what happens next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hope that temporary pandemic relief for borrowers will open the door to more permanent loan forgiveness. But it's unclear to what extent the Biden administration would do that. On Jan. 8, David Kamin, the incoming deputy director of Biden's National Economic Council, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1djGXqwyjlEJZ\">repeated Biden's support of Congress canceling up to $10,000\u003c/a> in federal student loans per borrower in response to the pandemic. But many Democrats want him to go further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer unveiled a plan calling for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal student loans per borrower. Biden has yet to signal interest in this plan. In his campaign proposal, he outlined a number of changes to paying back loans, including canceling $10,000 in debt for students who work in national or community service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=President+Biden+Will+Extend+Student+Loan+Payment+Freeze+Through+Sept.+30&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Biden will issue an executive order asking the Education Department to extend pandemic relief for about 41 million federal student loan borrowers through Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March 2020, borrowers were granted a reprieve on their loan payments — interest was set to 0% and collections of defaulted federal student loans were paused. Congress initiated this relief in the CARES Act. Both President Donald Trump and, later, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, extended it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Biden's executive order, expected later today, the relief was set to expire on Jan. 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The back and forth on deadlines has been a challenge for borrowers. Research from Pew conducted in August and September found that, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/04/943293547/education-dept-extends-student-loan-payment-freeze-through-january\">among borrowers who said the relief applied to them\u003c/a>, about 40% did not know when their loan payments were set to resume. That research also found that borrowers are struggling financially due to the pandemic: Almost 6 in 10 borrowers with paused payments reported to Pew that it would be difficult to begin making their payments if they had to do so in the next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the extension for the next eight months, borrowers and loan servicers now have a longer runway to prepare for when repayment starts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The extension of the payment pauses provides much needed relief to borrowers during the pandemic in the short-term,\" says Sarah Sattelmeyer, director of the Pew Charitable Trust's Student Borrower Success project. The big question now is what happens next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many hope that temporary pandemic relief for borrowers will open the door to more permanent loan forgiveness. But it's unclear to what extent the Biden administration would do that. On Jan. 8, David Kamin, the incoming deputy director of Biden's National Economic Council, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1djGXqwyjlEJZ\">repeated Biden's support of Congress canceling up to $10,000\u003c/a> in federal student loans per borrower in response to the pandemic. But many Democrats want him to go further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer unveiled a plan calling for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal student loans per borrower. Biden has yet to signal interest in this plan. In his campaign proposal, he outlined a number of changes to paying back loans, including canceling $10,000 in debt for students who work in national or community service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=President+Biden+Will+Extend+Student+Loan+Payment+Freeze+Through+Sept.+30&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated at 5:03 p.m. ET\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The College Board \u003ca href=\"https://allaccess.collegeboard.org/update-reducing-and-simplifying-demands-students\">announced on Tuesday\u003c/a> that it will discontinue the optional essay component of the SAT and that it will no longer offer subject tests in U.S. history, languages and math, among other topics. The organization, which administers the college entrance exam in addition to several other tests, including Advanced Placement exams, will instead focus efforts on a new digital version of the SAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the announcement, the organization cited the coronavirus pandemic for these changes: \"The pandemic accelerated a process already underway at the College Board to reduce and simplify demands on students.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College entrance exams have had a hard go of it during the pandemic. Many in-person testing dates for the SAT \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/09/28/hundreds-thousands-who-registered-sat-unable-take-it\">were canceled\u003c/a> because of social distancing needs and closed high school buildings; a previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/at-home-sat-coronavirus.html\">digital version of the SAT was scrapped\u003c/a> in June after technical difficulties; and hundreds of colleges have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/875367144/colleges-are-backing-off-sat-act-scores-but-the-exams-will-be-hard-to-shake\">removed the exam from admissions requirements\u003c/a>, in some cases permanently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few colleges require the optional writing portion of the SAT or the subject tests, though students can still submit them to supplement their college applications. The AP exams have become far more important in demonstrating mastery of subjects and, in some cases, providing college credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Removing the subject tests can remove a barrier for students,\" says Ashley L. Bennett, director of college counseling at KIPP Sunnyside High School in Houston. But, she adds, \"I believe that standardized testing in general needs to be less emphasized in the college search process.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Heaton advises families about college admissions at College Coach in Watertown, Mass. She thinks the changes could help put some students on a more level playing field. \"For students who aren't getting great advising, it is nice to see that they haven't been eliminated from competition just by virtue of not having a test that they may not have known about.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Catalina Cifuentes, who works to promote college access in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, has reservations. She worries that removing the SAT subject tests will create more barriers for her students, rather than less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Hundreds of my students take the subject tests in Spanish and other languages because it provides them an opportunity to show their understanding of a second language,\" explains Cifuentes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of her students speak a second language at home and would be the first in their family to go to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says her college-bound students often enroll in the University of California and California State University systems, which both require two years of coursework in another language for admission. The SAT foreign-language tests sometimes filled that requirement, but the removal of these exams means Cifuentes will have to shift gears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We will need to work closely with our world language teachers to expand on ideas ... for students who already read, write and speak another language,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her job is all about helping school districts adapt to decisions from colleges and organizations like the College Board, Cifuentes explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Every decision they discuss — there's real repercussions. There's no right or wrong decision, but with everything they do, it should be students first.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eda Uzunlar is an intern on NPR's Education Desk. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=SAT+Discontinues+Subject+Tests+And+Optional+Essay&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"description": "The College Board, citing the pandemic for the changes, will shift focus to a new digital version of the college entrance exam.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated at 5:03 p.m. ET\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The College Board \u003ca href=\"https://allaccess.collegeboard.org/update-reducing-and-simplifying-demands-students\">announced on Tuesday\u003c/a> that it will discontinue the optional essay component of the SAT and that it will no longer offer subject tests in U.S. history, languages and math, among other topics. The organization, which administers the college entrance exam in addition to several other tests, including Advanced Placement exams, will instead focus efforts on a new digital version of the SAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the announcement, the organization cited the coronavirus pandemic for these changes: \"The pandemic accelerated a process already underway at the College Board to reduce and simplify demands on students.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College entrance exams have had a hard go of it during the pandemic. Many in-person testing dates for the SAT \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/09/28/hundreds-thousands-who-registered-sat-unable-take-it\">were canceled\u003c/a> because of social distancing needs and closed high school buildings; a previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/at-home-sat-coronavirus.html\">digital version of the SAT was scrapped\u003c/a> in June after technical difficulties; and hundreds of colleges have \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/875367144/colleges-are-backing-off-sat-act-scores-but-the-exams-will-be-hard-to-shake\">removed the exam from admissions requirements\u003c/a>, in some cases permanently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few colleges require the optional writing portion of the SAT or the subject tests, though students can still submit them to supplement their college applications. The AP exams have become far more important in demonstrating mastery of subjects and, in some cases, providing college credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Removing the subject tests can remove a barrier for students,\" says Ashley L. Bennett, director of college counseling at KIPP Sunnyside High School in Houston. But, she adds, \"I believe that standardized testing in general needs to be less emphasized in the college search process.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Heaton advises families about college admissions at College Coach in Watertown, Mass. She thinks the changes could help put some students on a more level playing field. \"For students who aren't getting great advising, it is nice to see that they haven't been eliminated from competition just by virtue of not having a test that they may not have known about.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Catalina Cifuentes, who works to promote college access in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, has reservations. She worries that removing the SAT subject tests will create more barriers for her students, rather than less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Hundreds of my students take the subject tests in Spanish and other languages because it provides them an opportunity to show their understanding of a second language,\" explains Cifuentes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of her students speak a second language at home and would be the first in their family to go to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says her college-bound students often enroll in the University of California and California State University systems, which both require two years of coursework in another language for admission. The SAT foreign-language tests sometimes filled that requirement, but the removal of these exams means Cifuentes will have to shift gears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We will need to work closely with our world language teachers to expand on ideas ... for students who already read, write and speak another language,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her job is all about helping school districts adapt to decisions from colleges and organizations like the College Board, Cifuentes explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Every decision they discuss — there's real repercussions. There's no right or wrong decision, but with everything they do, it should be students first.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Eda Uzunlar is an intern on NPR's Education Desk. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=SAT+Discontinues+Subject+Tests+And+Optional+Essay&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Six Ways to Build Community in Online Classrooms",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a longtime theater and English teacher, Leah Calote is intentional about cultivating an environment where students can take risks. “Doing artistic things is so vulnerable,” she said. “You can't really feel comfortable creating things in a space that you don't feel safe.” But creating that space remotely is new territory. Since the coronavirus outbreak began last spring, Calote has studied the work of theater companies and literature teachers, engaged with other educators on Twitter and taken online improv classes herself — all in search of ideas to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56979/what-the-research-says-about-the-academic-power-of-friendship\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">help her students connect\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “I knew that that was going to be important online, especially since we haven't seen each other in so long and we're not used to socializing in this medium,” said Calote, who teaches at Rancho Campana High School in Camarillo, California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a year that no one would describe as easy, she said the closeness of her classes, which range in size from about 35 to 50 students, has surprised her. Students have worked creatively around the constraints of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/category/distance-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">distance learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, dived into \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57191/7-books-to-help-address-and-discuss-tough-topics-with-kids\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">difficult topics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and formed \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/friendships\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bonds\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that go beyond school hours. In interviews during her school’s first and second trimesters, Calote shared six ways she’s succeeded at building community in an online classroom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/RanchoBackstage/status/1330004453773115400\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Invest in relationships right away\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote devoted the first two weeks of each trimester to rapport-building activities, such as creating and sharing \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-digital-collage-student2.png\">digital collages\u003c/a>. For some teachers, such exercises can feel expendable, especially in a year when \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57020/report-offers-clearest-picture-yet-of-pandemics-impact-on-student-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">learning loss\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a looming concern. Calote gets that. Depending on the class, she sees students for only one or two trimesters, which is not a lot of time. But the up-front investment into relationships is “incredibly worth it,” she said. When her English students dig into discussions about poems related to their identities, for example, “they're able to do that because they know who's in the class and they feel comfortable.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those relationships also pay off during \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-strategies-for-promoting-student-collaboration-in-a-distance-learning-environment/2020/09\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">collaborative projects\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Faced with logistical challenges of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54486/how-collaboration-unlocks-learning-and-lessens-student-isolation\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">working together\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from afar, Calote said her students have risen to the occasion. In a project recreating iconic film scenes, for example, one pair of students produced a Star Wars battle from separate homes. “It's been really cool to see the wide range of imaginative things that they've done and to see their storytelling skills evolve,” Calote said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Establish group norms\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote also started the year with an activity to establish group norms. In one class period, students responded individually to Padlet questions about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56393/why-student-voice-is-critical-for-managing-discipline-when-schools-reopen\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">what kind of learning environment they wanted\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Breakout groups discussed trends in the responses and added them to a slideshow during a subsequent class. Then the whole class used those trends to draft community agreements about how they would engage with one another.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57243\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1581px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57243 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1581\" height=\"936\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2.png 1581w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-800x474.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-1020x604.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-160x95.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-768x455.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-1536x909.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1581px) 100vw, 1581px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rancho Campana High School teacher Leah Calote used Padlet boards for students in theater and English classes to share what they wanted from their online classroom.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond behavioral expectations, Calote found other ways to unify students across a virtual space. She invited students to add songs to a collaborative Spotify playlist that she plays as they log in. She also chats casually with students during that time, as many teachers would in school hallways. The welcoming vibe has created an environment where classes have developed inside jokes, freshmen have taught her slang, and students have planned after-class \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/12/931304349/among-us-its-every-little-space-sausage-for-themselves\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Among Us\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> parties.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It also has made it possible for Calote’s classes to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57205/how-to-talk-to-kids-about-the-riots-at-the-u-s-capitol\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">address stressful political events\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> openly and empathetically. After the recent \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">insurrection at the U.S. Capitol\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote gave a presentation about the events and facilitated structured discussions about students' reactions. With her classes that had only been together for a couple of weeks in the new trimester, she had to turn off the chat box during her slides, “because emotions were really high.” That wasn’t the case with classes that were entering their second trimester together: “I knew that if they were going to bring something up in the chat separate from what was being presented on screen, it wasn't going to be off topic and it wasn't going to be superficial or jokey or inflammatory.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1251px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57244 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1251\" height=\"704\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English.png 1251w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-1020x574.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1251px) 100vw, 1251px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After brainstorming on Padlet, Leah Calote’s English and theater students created community agreements to establish class norms.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Offer multiple modes to participate\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the pandemic, policies around \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edutopia.org/article/value-camera-optional-policy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">on-camera participation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/doug_lemov/status/1306940837209743362?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stoked debate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> among teachers. According to Education Week, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/most-educators-require-kids-to-turn-cameras-on-in-virtual-class-despite-equity-concerns/2020/10\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">more than three quarters of educators\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> require students to turn on cameras during live instruction. Calote is not in that majority. “Sometimes people just aren't in a talkative mood, which is fine,” she said. Inspired by \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MrsParkShine/status/1300401054404796416\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">an idea from instructional designer Esther Park\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote creates breakout rooms for her English classes based on communication style. Students choose whether to join a room that will use cameras and microphones, microphones only, or type chat only.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While some teachers feel frustrated by “teaching into the void,” Calote said it’s important to recognize that off-camera students are, in fact, participating. “It's just not the way that you're used to. It's a different medium.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Encourage peer feedback\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Calote took an online class with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://improtheatre.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Impro Theatre\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> last year, each session ended with performers giving each other shoutouts on their work. After seeing how the practice grounded and connected participants, Calote adopted it for her own classes at Rancho Campana. For students on the receiving end, “to hear that someone noticed that you did something that they admired, it is very validating,” she said. Calote encourages students to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-psa-when-giving-feedback-dont-lead-with-i-love-or-i-like/2019/04\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be specific\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with their compliments, going beyond “that was great.” A self-assessment form that students use for note-taking has helped. The form is primarily as a launch pad for self-reflection, but it also gives them a starting point for \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/Peer-Feedback-in-the-Classroom.aspx\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">peer feedback\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Connect with students one-on-one\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to fostering relationships among students, Calote was conscious about the role that \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56278/how-teacher-looping-can-ease-the-learning-disruptions-caused-by-coronavirus\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">student-teacher familiarity plays in learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. About halfway through the first trimester in her English class, she created an extra breakout room while groups were discussing poetry. Over two class periods, she used that room to check in with all 38 class members individually. She asked about their experiences so far, how other classes were going and what else was happening in their lives. The conversations were “illuminating,” she said, allowing her to find out, for example, which students were working jobs to support their families or moving between multiple households \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cnsmaryland.org/2020/12/17/covid-means-many-more-responsibilities-for-the-oldest-child/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to care for younger relatives\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote also shares parts of her own life with students. For instance, she set up an inexpensive document camera where her cat, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RanchoBackstage/status/1348746914213154816\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zoya\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, sleeps and sometimes turns it on for students to watch. “I think if you put in the time and are a little bit vulnerable yourself and generous yourself with students, it helps make them feel safe to do the same,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Prioritize a culture of care\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her opening slides with her classes, Calote listed five commitments to her students: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I care about you.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Safety matters.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Comfort counts.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I value personality.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basic needs are important.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57246\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1252px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57246\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1252\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide.png 1252w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-800x447.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-1020x570.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-160x89.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-768x429.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1252px) 100vw, 1252px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rancho Campana High School teacher Leah Calote opened her 2020-21 classes with these promises to students. She said the list was adapted from one shared by another teacher on Twitter last summer.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They weren’t empty promises. During stressful periods, Calote took \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/mindfulness\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">class time for guided breathing exercises\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and to walk students through how to access \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57108/listen-and-connect-how-parents-can-support-teens-mental-health-right-now\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">mental health resources\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> online. Calote also sent postcards to students for their birthdays and found other ways to offer support, like being flexible when a student missed class or dropping off a stress ball to a student who had a tough week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the challenges of distance learning amid a global pandemic, Calote said her students have impressed her with their resilience and empathy. “Yes, it's not like teaching in person, but it's pretty great for teaching this way. You still feel a part of a community where people are putting forth their best effort to be human together.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Staying connected is hard when everyone is far apart. But these techniques can help deepen relationships and help make sure students are ok. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a longtime theater and English teacher, Leah Calote is intentional about cultivating an environment where students can take risks. “Doing artistic things is so vulnerable,” she said. “You can't really feel comfortable creating things in a space that you don't feel safe.” But creating that space remotely is new territory. Since the coronavirus outbreak began last spring, Calote has studied the work of theater companies and literature teachers, engaged with other educators on Twitter and taken online improv classes herself — all in search of ideas to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56979/what-the-research-says-about-the-academic-power-of-friendship\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">help her students connect\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “I knew that that was going to be important online, especially since we haven't seen each other in so long and we're not used to socializing in this medium,” said Calote, who teaches at Rancho Campana High School in Camarillo, California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a year that no one would describe as easy, she said the closeness of her classes, which range in size from about 35 to 50 students, has surprised her. Students have worked creatively around the constraints of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/category/distance-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">distance learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, dived into \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57191/7-books-to-help-address-and-discuss-tough-topics-with-kids\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">difficult topics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and formed \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/friendships\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bonds\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that go beyond school hours. In interviews during her school’s first and second trimesters, Calote shared six ways she’s succeeded at building community in an online classroom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Invest in relationships right away\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote devoted the first two weeks of each trimester to rapport-building activities, such as creating and sharing \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-digital-collage-student2.png\">digital collages\u003c/a>. For some teachers, such exercises can feel expendable, especially in a year when \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57020/report-offers-clearest-picture-yet-of-pandemics-impact-on-student-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">learning loss\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a looming concern. Calote gets that. Depending on the class, she sees students for only one or two trimesters, which is not a lot of time. But the up-front investment into relationships is “incredibly worth it,” she said. When her English students dig into discussions about poems related to their identities, for example, “they're able to do that because they know who's in the class and they feel comfortable.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those relationships also pay off during \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-strategies-for-promoting-student-collaboration-in-a-distance-learning-environment/2020/09\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">collaborative projects\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Faced with logistical challenges of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54486/how-collaboration-unlocks-learning-and-lessens-student-isolation\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">working together\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from afar, Calote said her students have risen to the occasion. In a project recreating iconic film scenes, for example, one pair of students produced a Star Wars battle from separate homes. “It's been really cool to see the wide range of imaginative things that they've done and to see their storytelling skills evolve,” Calote said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Establish group norms\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote also started the year with an activity to establish group norms. In one class period, students responded individually to Padlet questions about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56393/why-student-voice-is-critical-for-managing-discipline-when-schools-reopen\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">what kind of learning environment they wanted\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Breakout groups discussed trends in the responses and added them to a slideshow during a subsequent class. Then the whole class used those trends to draft community agreements about how they would engage with one another.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57243\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1581px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57243 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1581\" height=\"936\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2.png 1581w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-800x474.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-1020x604.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-160x95.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-768x455.png 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-padlet2-1536x909.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1581px) 100vw, 1581px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rancho Campana High School teacher Leah Calote used Padlet boards for students in theater and English classes to share what they wanted from their online classroom.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond behavioral expectations, Calote found other ways to unify students across a virtual space. She invited students to add songs to a collaborative Spotify playlist that she plays as they log in. She also chats casually with students during that time, as many teachers would in school hallways. The welcoming vibe has created an environment where classes have developed inside jokes, freshmen have taught her slang, and students have planned after-class \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/12/931304349/among-us-its-every-little-space-sausage-for-themselves\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Among Us\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> parties.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It also has made it possible for Calote’s classes to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57205/how-to-talk-to-kids-about-the-riots-at-the-u-s-capitol\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">address stressful political events\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> openly and empathetically. After the recent \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">insurrection at the U.S. Capitol\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote gave a presentation about the events and facilitated structured discussions about students' reactions. With her classes that had only been together for a couple of weeks in the new trimester, she had to turn off the chat box during her slides, “because emotions were really high.” That wasn’t the case with classes that were entering their second trimester together: “I knew that if they were going to bring something up in the chat separate from what was being presented on screen, it wasn't going to be off topic and it wasn't going to be superficial or jokey or inflammatory.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1251px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57244 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1251\" height=\"704\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English.png 1251w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-1020x574.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-community-agreements-English-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1251px) 100vw, 1251px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After brainstorming on Padlet, Leah Calote’s English and theater students created community agreements to establish class norms.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Offer multiple modes to participate\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout the pandemic, policies around \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edutopia.org/article/value-camera-optional-policy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">on-camera participation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/doug_lemov/status/1306940837209743362?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stoked debate\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> among teachers. According to Education Week, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/most-educators-require-kids-to-turn-cameras-on-in-virtual-class-despite-equity-concerns/2020/10\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">more than three quarters of educators\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> require students to turn on cameras during live instruction. Calote is not in that majority. “Sometimes people just aren't in a talkative mood, which is fine,” she said. Inspired by \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MrsParkShine/status/1300401054404796416\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">an idea from instructional designer Esther Park\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote creates breakout rooms for her English classes based on communication style. Students choose whether to join a room that will use cameras and microphones, microphones only, or type chat only.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While some teachers feel frustrated by “teaching into the void,” Calote said it’s important to recognize that off-camera students are, in fact, participating. “It's just not the way that you're used to. It's a different medium.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Encourage peer feedback\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Calote took an online class with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://improtheatre.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Impro Theatre\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> last year, each session ended with performers giving each other shoutouts on their work. After seeing how the practice grounded and connected participants, Calote adopted it for her own classes at Rancho Campana. For students on the receiving end, “to hear that someone noticed that you did something that they admired, it is very validating,” she said. Calote encourages students to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-psa-when-giving-feedback-dont-lead-with-i-love-or-i-like/2019/04\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be specific\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with their compliments, going beyond “that was great.” A self-assessment form that students use for note-taking has helped. The form is primarily as a launch pad for self-reflection, but it also gives them a starting point for \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/Peer-Feedback-in-the-Classroom.aspx\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">peer feedback\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Calote said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Connect with students one-on-one\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to fostering relationships among students, Calote was conscious about the role that \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56278/how-teacher-looping-can-ease-the-learning-disruptions-caused-by-coronavirus\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">student-teacher familiarity plays in learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. About halfway through the first trimester in her English class, she created an extra breakout room while groups were discussing poetry. Over two class periods, she used that room to check in with all 38 class members individually. She asked about their experiences so far, how other classes were going and what else was happening in their lives. The conversations were “illuminating,” she said, allowing her to find out, for example, which students were working jobs to support their families or moving between multiple households \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cnsmaryland.org/2020/12/17/covid-means-many-more-responsibilities-for-the-oldest-child/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to care for younger relatives\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calote also shares parts of her own life with students. For instance, she set up an inexpensive document camera where her cat, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RanchoBackstage/status/1348746914213154816\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zoya\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, sleeps and sometimes turns it on for students to watch. “I think if you put in the time and are a little bit vulnerable yourself and generous yourself with students, it helps make them feel safe to do the same,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003cb>Prioritize a culture of care\u003c/b>\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her opening slides with her classes, Calote listed five commitments to her students: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I care about you.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Safety matters.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Comfort counts.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I value personality.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basic needs are important.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57246\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1252px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57246\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1252\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide.png 1252w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-800x447.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-1020x570.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-160x89.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/Calote-first-day-slide-768x429.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1252px) 100vw, 1252px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rancho Campana High School teacher Leah Calote opened her 2020-21 classes with these promises to students. She said the list was adapted from one shared by another teacher on Twitter last summer.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They weren’t empty promises. During stressful periods, Calote took \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/mindfulness\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">class time for guided breathing exercises\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and to walk students through how to access \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57108/listen-and-connect-how-parents-can-support-teens-mental-health-right-now\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">mental health resources\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> online. Calote also sent postcards to students for their birthdays and found other ways to offer support, like being flexible when a student missed class or dropping off a stress ball to a student who had a tough week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the challenges of distance learning amid a global pandemic, Calote said her students have impressed her with their resilience and empathy. “Yes, it's not like teaching in person, but it's pretty great for teaching this way. You still feel a part of a community where people are putting forth their best effort to be human together.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "'I've Tried Everything': Pandemic Worsens Child Mental Health Crisis",
"title": "'I've Tried Everything': Pandemic Worsens Child Mental Health Crisis",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>A bag of Doritos, that's all Princess wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom calls her Princess, but her real name is Lindsey. She's 17 and lives with her mom, Sandra, a nurse, outside of Atlanta. On May 17, 2020, a Sunday, Lindsey decided she didn't want breakfast; she wanted Doritos. So she left home and walked to Family Dollar, taking her pants off on the way, while her mom followed on the phone with police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey has autism (NPR isn't using last names to protect her privacy). It can be hard for her to communicate and navigate social situations. She thrives on routine, and gets special help at school. Or \u003cem>got\u003c/em> help, before the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and forced tens of millions of children home. Sandra says that's when their living hell started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like her brain was wired,\" she says. \"She'd just put on her jacket, and she's out the door. And I'm chasing her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 17, Sandra chased her all the way to Family Dollar. Hours later, Lindsey was in jail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey is one of almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6644a13.htm\">3 million children\u003c/a> in the U.S. who have been diagnosed with a serious emotional or behavioral health condition. When the pandemic forced schools and doctors' offices closed last spring, it also cut children off from the trained teachers and therapists who understand their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, many, like Lindsey, spiraled into emergency rooms and even police custody. Federal data show \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm\">a nationwide surge\u003c/a> of kids in mental health crisis during the pandemic — a surge that's further taxing an already overstretched safety net.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Take her'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even after schools closed, Lindsey would continue to wake up early, get dressed and wait for the bus. When it stopped coming, Sandra says, her daughter just started walking out of the house, wandering, a few times a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In those situations, Sandra did what many families in crisis tell NPR they've had to do since the pandemic began: race through the short list of places she could call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, her state's mental health crisis hotline. But they often put Sandra on hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is ridiculous,\" she says of the wait. \"It's supposed to be a crisis team. But I'm on hold for 40, 50 minutes. And by the time you get on the phone, [the crisis] is done!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there's the local hospital's emergency room, but Sandra says she had taken Lindsey there for previous crises and been told there isn't much they can do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's why, on May 17, when Lindsey walked to Family Dollar in just a red t-shirt and underwear, to get that bag of Doritos, Sandra called the last option on her list: the police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra arrived at the store before the police and paid for the chips. According to Sandra and police records, when an officer approached, Lindsey grew agitated and hit her mom on the back, hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra says she explained to the officer: \" 'She's autistic. You know, I'm OK. I'm a nurse. I just need to take her home and give her her medication.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57261\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57261\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/melton_cam17325-3000-2_slide-00b863e98e12a34f5041c7fec533ac43ed099576-scaled-e1611214696117.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After Lindsey's school closed, Sandra says her daughter continued to wake up early, get dressed and wait for the bus. When it didn't come, Lindsey started walking out of the house, wandering, a few times a week. \u003ccite>(Audra Melton for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lindsey takes a mood-stabilizer, but because she left home before breakfast, she hadn't taken it that morning. The officer asked if Sandra wanted to take her to the nearest hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital wouldn't be able to help Lindsey, Sandra said. It hadn't before. \"They already told me, 'Ma'am, there's nothing we can do.' They just check her labs, it's fine, and they ship her back home. There's nothing [the hospital] can do,\" she recalls telling the officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra asked if the police could drive her daughter home, so the teen could take her medication, but the officer said no, they couldn't. The only other thing they could do, the officer said, was take Lindsey to jail for hitting her mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've tried everything,\" Sandra said, exasperated. She paced the parking lot, feeling hopeless, sad and out of options. Finally, in tears, she told the officers, \"Take her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey does not like to be touched and fought back when authorities tried to handcuff her. Several officers wrestled her to the ground. At that point, Sandra protested and says an officer threatened to arrest her too if she didn't back away. Lindsey was taken to jail, where she spent much of the night until Sandra was able to post bail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clayton County Solicitor-General Charles Brooks denies that Sandra was threatened with arrest and tells NPR, while Lindsey's case is still pending, his office \"is working to ensure that the resolution in this matter involves a plan for medication compliance and not punitive action.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra isn't alone in her experience. NPR heard similar stories from multiple families — stories of calling in the police when a child was in crisis because caretakers didn't feel they had any other option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'The whole system is really grinding to a halt'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6644a13.htm\">6% of U.S. children\u003c/a>, ages 6 through 17, are living with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties, including children with autism, severe anxiety, depression and trauma-related mental health conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these children depend on schools for access to vital therapies. When schools and doctors' offices stopped providing in-person services last spring, kids were untethered from the people and supports they'd come to rely on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The lack of in-person services is really detrimental,\" says \u003ca href=\"https://vivo.brown.edu/display/sduffymd\">Dr. Susan Duffy\u003c/a>, a pediatrician and professor of emergency medicine at Brown University. \"So school-based services are one, but also in-person services in general are disrupted [by the pandemic].\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marjorie, a mother in Florida, says her 15-year-old son has suffered during these disruptions. He has ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder, a condition marked by frequent and persistent hostility. Little things — like being asked to do school work — can send him into a rage, leading to holes punched in walls, broken doors and violent threats. (Marjorie asked that we not use her last name to protect her family's privacy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic has shifted both school and her son's therapy sessions online. But Marjorie says virtual therapy isn't working, because her son doesn't focus well during sessions and tries to watch TV instead. Lately, she has simply been cancelling them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I was paying for appointments and there was no therapeutic value,\" Marjorie says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues cut across socioeconomic lines — affecting families with private insurance, like Marjorie, as well as those who receive coverage through Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides health insurance to lower-income people and those with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first few months of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, children on Medicaid received \u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-service-use-among-medicaid-chip-beneficiaries-age-18-and-under-during-covid-19\">44%\u003c/a> fewer outpatient mental health services — including therapy and in-home support — compared to the same time period in 2019, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That's even after accounting for increased telehealth appointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while the nation's ERs have seen a decline in overall visits, there was a relative increase in mental health visits for kids in 2020 compared to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, from April to October 2020, hospitals across the U.S. saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm\">24% increase\u003c/a> in the proportion of mental health emergency visits for children ages 5 to 11, and a 31% increase for children ages 12 to 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Proportionally, the number of mental health visits is far more significant than it has been in the past,\" says Duffy. \"Not only are we seeing more children, more children are being admitted [to in-patient care].\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's because there are fewer outpatient services now available to children, she says, and because the children showing up at ERs \"are more serious.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This crisis is not only making life harder for these kids and their families, it's stressing the entire health care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Child and adolescent psychiatrists working in hospitals around the country tell NPR that children are increasingly \"boarding\" in emergency departments for days, waiting for in-patient admission to a regular hospital or psychiatric hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, there was already a \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16912929/\">shortage of in-patient psychiatric beds\u003c/a> for children, says \u003ca href=\"https://jbcc.harvard.edu/christopher-bellonci-md\">Dr. Christopher Bellonci\u003c/a>, a child psychiatrist at Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. That shortage has only gotten worse as hospitals cut capacity to allow for more physical distancing within psychiatric units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole system is really grinding to a halt at a time when we have unprecedented need,\" Bellonci says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'A signal that the rest of your system doesn't work'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychiatrists on the front lines share the frustrations of parents struggling to find help for their children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem is there have never been enough psychiatrists and therapists trained to work with children, intervening in the early stages of their illness, says \u003ca href=\"https://nyulangone.org/doctors/1205956968/jennifer-havens\">Dr. Jennifer Havens\u003c/a>, a child psychiatrist at NYU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Tons of people showing up in emergency rooms in bad shape is a signal that the rest of your system doesn't work,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Havens says too often, services aren't available until children are older — and in crisis. \"Often for people who don't have access to services, we wait until they're too big to be managed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the pandemic has made life harder for Marjorie and her son in Florida, she says it has always been difficult to find the support and care he needs. Last fall, he needed a psychiatric evaluation, but the nearest specialist who would accept her commercial insurance was 100 miles away, in Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Even when you have the money or you have the insurance, it is still a travesty,\" Marjorie says. \"You cannot get help for these kids.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents are frustrated, and so are psychiatrists on the front lines. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/find-a-doctor/profiles/charles-j-glawe\">Dr. C.J. Glawe\u003c/a> leads the psychiatric crisis department at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says once a child is stabilized after a crisis, it can be hard to explain to parents that they may not be able to find follow-up care anywhere near their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Especially when I can clearly tell you I know exactly what you need, I just can't give it to you,\" Glawe says, \"it's demoralizing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When states and communities fail to provide children the services they need to live at home, kids can deteriorate and even wind up in jail, like Lindsey. At that point, Glawe says, the cost and level of care required will be even higher, whether that's hospitalization or long stays in residential treatment facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's exactly the scenario Sandra, Lindsey's mom, is hoping to avoid for her Princess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"For me, as a nurse and as a provider, that will be the last thing for my daughter,\" she says. \"It's like [state and local leaders] leave it to the school and the parent to deal with, and they don't care. And that's the problem. It's sad because, if I'm not here...\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her voice trails off a moment, tears welling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"She didn't ask to have autism.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help families like Sandra's and Marjorie's, advocates say all levels of government need to invest in creating a mental health system that's accessible to anyone who needs it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given that many states have seen their \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/03/893190275/states-are-broke-and-many-are-eyeing-massive-cuts-heres-how-yours-is-doing\">revenues drop\u003c/a> due to the pandemic, there's a concern services will instead get cut — at a time when the need has never been greater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, Illinois Public Media and Kaiser Health News.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27I%27ve+Tried+Everything%27%3A+Pandemic+Worsens+Child+Mental+Health+Crisis&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A bag of Doritos, that's all Princess wanted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom calls her Princess, but her real name is Lindsey. She's 17 and lives with her mom, Sandra, a nurse, outside of Atlanta. On May 17, 2020, a Sunday, Lindsey decided she didn't want breakfast; she wanted Doritos. So she left home and walked to Family Dollar, taking her pants off on the way, while her mom followed on the phone with police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey has autism (NPR isn't using last names to protect her privacy). It can be hard for her to communicate and navigate social situations. She thrives on routine, and gets special help at school. Or \u003cem>got\u003c/em> help, before the coronavirus pandemic closed schools and forced tens of millions of children home. Sandra says that's when their living hell started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like her brain was wired,\" she says. \"She'd just put on her jacket, and she's out the door. And I'm chasing her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On May 17, Sandra chased her all the way to Family Dollar. Hours later, Lindsey was in jail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey is one of almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6644a13.htm\">3 million children\u003c/a> in the U.S. who have been diagnosed with a serious emotional or behavioral health condition. When the pandemic forced schools and doctors' offices closed last spring, it also cut children off from the trained teachers and therapists who understand their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, many, like Lindsey, spiraled into emergency rooms and even police custody. Federal data show \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm\">a nationwide surge\u003c/a> of kids in mental health crisis during the pandemic — a surge that's further taxing an already overstretched safety net.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Take her'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even after schools closed, Lindsey would continue to wake up early, get dressed and wait for the bus. When it stopped coming, Sandra says, her daughter just started walking out of the house, wandering, a few times a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In those situations, Sandra did what many families in crisis tell NPR they've had to do since the pandemic began: race through the short list of places she could call for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, her state's mental health crisis hotline. But they often put Sandra on hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is ridiculous,\" she says of the wait. \"It's supposed to be a crisis team. But I'm on hold for 40, 50 minutes. And by the time you get on the phone, [the crisis] is done!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there's the local hospital's emergency room, but Sandra says she had taken Lindsey there for previous crises and been told there isn't much they can do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's why, on May 17, when Lindsey walked to Family Dollar in just a red t-shirt and underwear, to get that bag of Doritos, Sandra called the last option on her list: the police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra arrived at the store before the police and paid for the chips. According to Sandra and police records, when an officer approached, Lindsey grew agitated and hit her mom on the back, hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra says she explained to the officer: \" 'She's autistic. You know, I'm OK. I'm a nurse. I just need to take her home and give her her medication.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57261\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57261\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/01/melton_cam17325-3000-2_slide-00b863e98e12a34f5041c7fec533ac43ed099576-scaled-e1611214696117.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After Lindsey's school closed, Sandra says her daughter continued to wake up early, get dressed and wait for the bus. When it didn't come, Lindsey started walking out of the house, wandering, a few times a week. \u003ccite>(Audra Melton for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lindsey takes a mood-stabilizer, but because she left home before breakfast, she hadn't taken it that morning. The officer asked if Sandra wanted to take her to the nearest hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital wouldn't be able to help Lindsey, Sandra said. It hadn't before. \"They already told me, 'Ma'am, there's nothing we can do.' They just check her labs, it's fine, and they ship her back home. There's nothing [the hospital] can do,\" she recalls telling the officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra asked if the police could drive her daughter home, so the teen could take her medication, but the officer said no, they couldn't. The only other thing they could do, the officer said, was take Lindsey to jail for hitting her mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've tried everything,\" Sandra said, exasperated. She paced the parking lot, feeling hopeless, sad and out of options. Finally, in tears, she told the officers, \"Take her.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lindsey does not like to be touched and fought back when authorities tried to handcuff her. Several officers wrestled her to the ground. At that point, Sandra protested and says an officer threatened to arrest her too if she didn't back away. Lindsey was taken to jail, where she spent much of the night until Sandra was able to post bail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clayton County Solicitor-General Charles Brooks denies that Sandra was threatened with arrest and tells NPR, while Lindsey's case is still pending, his office \"is working to ensure that the resolution in this matter involves a plan for medication compliance and not punitive action.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandra isn't alone in her experience. NPR heard similar stories from multiple families — stories of calling in the police when a child was in crisis because caretakers didn't feel they had any other option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'The whole system is really grinding to a halt'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6644a13.htm\">6% of U.S. children\u003c/a>, ages 6 through 17, are living with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties, including children with autism, severe anxiety, depression and trauma-related mental health conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these children depend on schools for access to vital therapies. When schools and doctors' offices stopped providing in-person services last spring, kids were untethered from the people and supports they'd come to rely on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The lack of in-person services is really detrimental,\" says \u003ca href=\"https://vivo.brown.edu/display/sduffymd\">Dr. Susan Duffy\u003c/a>, a pediatrician and professor of emergency medicine at Brown University. \"So school-based services are one, but also in-person services in general are disrupted [by the pandemic].\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marjorie, a mother in Florida, says her 15-year-old son has suffered during these disruptions. He has ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder, a condition marked by frequent and persistent hostility. Little things — like being asked to do school work — can send him into a rage, leading to holes punched in walls, broken doors and violent threats. (Marjorie asked that we not use her last name to protect her family's privacy.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic has shifted both school and her son's therapy sessions online. But Marjorie says virtual therapy isn't working, because her son doesn't focus well during sessions and tries to watch TV instead. Lately, she has simply been cancelling them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I was paying for appointments and there was no therapeutic value,\" Marjorie says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issues cut across socioeconomic lines — affecting families with private insurance, like Marjorie, as well as those who receive coverage through Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides health insurance to lower-income people and those with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first few months of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, children on Medicaid received \u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-service-use-among-medicaid-chip-beneficiaries-age-18-and-under-during-covid-19\">44%\u003c/a> fewer outpatient mental health services — including therapy and in-home support — compared to the same time period in 2019, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That's even after accounting for increased telehealth appointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while the nation's ERs have seen a decline in overall visits, there was a relative increase in mental health visits for kids in 2020 compared to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, from April to October 2020, hospitals across the U.S. saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm\">24% increase\u003c/a> in the proportion of mental health emergency visits for children ages 5 to 11, and a 31% increase for children ages 12 to 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Proportionally, the number of mental health visits is far more significant than it has been in the past,\" says Duffy. \"Not only are we seeing more children, more children are being admitted [to in-patient care].\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's because there are fewer outpatient services now available to children, she says, and because the children showing up at ERs \"are more serious.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This crisis is not only making life harder for these kids and their families, it's stressing the entire health care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Child and adolescent psychiatrists working in hospitals around the country tell NPR that children are increasingly \"boarding\" in emergency departments for days, waiting for in-patient admission to a regular hospital or psychiatric hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, there was already a \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16912929/\">shortage of in-patient psychiatric beds\u003c/a> for children, says \u003ca href=\"https://jbcc.harvard.edu/christopher-bellonci-md\">Dr. Christopher Bellonci\u003c/a>, a child psychiatrist at Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. That shortage has only gotten worse as hospitals cut capacity to allow for more physical distancing within psychiatric units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole system is really grinding to a halt at a time when we have unprecedented need,\" Bellonci says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'A signal that the rest of your system doesn't work'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychiatrists on the front lines share the frustrations of parents struggling to find help for their children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem is there have never been enough psychiatrists and therapists trained to work with children, intervening in the early stages of their illness, says \u003ca href=\"https://nyulangone.org/doctors/1205956968/jennifer-havens\">Dr. Jennifer Havens\u003c/a>, a child psychiatrist at NYU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Tons of people showing up in emergency rooms in bad shape is a signal that the rest of your system doesn't work,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Havens says too often, services aren't available until children are older — and in crisis. \"Often for people who don't have access to services, we wait until they're too big to be managed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the pandemic has made life harder for Marjorie and her son in Florida, she says it has always been difficult to find the support and care he needs. Last fall, he needed a psychiatric evaluation, but the nearest specialist who would accept her commercial insurance was 100 miles away, in Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Even when you have the money or you have the insurance, it is still a travesty,\" Marjorie says. \"You cannot get help for these kids.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents are frustrated, and so are psychiatrists on the front lines. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/find-a-doctor/profiles/charles-j-glawe\">Dr. C.J. Glawe\u003c/a> leads the psychiatric crisis department at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says once a child is stabilized after a crisis, it can be hard to explain to parents that they may not be able to find follow-up care anywhere near their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Especially when I can clearly tell you I know exactly what you need, I just can't give it to you,\" Glawe says, \"it's demoralizing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When states and communities fail to provide children the services they need to live at home, kids can deteriorate and even wind up in jail, like Lindsey. At that point, Glawe says, the cost and level of care required will be even higher, whether that's hospitalization or long stays in residential treatment facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's exactly the scenario Sandra, Lindsey's mom, is hoping to avoid for her Princess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"For me, as a nurse and as a provider, that will be the last thing for my daughter,\" she says. \"It's like [state and local leaders] leave it to the school and the parent to deal with, and they don't care. And that's the problem. It's sad because, if I'm not here...\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her voice trails off a moment, tears welling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"She didn't ask to have autism.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help families like Sandra's and Marjorie's, advocates say all levels of government need to invest in creating a mental health system that's accessible to anyone who needs it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given that many states have seen their \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/03/893190275/states-are-broke-and-many-are-eyeing-massive-cuts-heres-how-yours-is-doing\">revenues drop\u003c/a> due to the pandemic, there's a concern services will instead get cut — at a time when the need has never been greater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, Illinois Public Media and Kaiser Health News.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27I%27ve+Tried+Everything%27%3A+Pandemic+Worsens+Child+Mental+Health+Crisis&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Don Brown has been driving a school bus for more than 20 years in the Chicago area. And for all that time, he's noticed one odd student habit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As they climb aboard his bus, \"when they get to the top step, they always cough,\" he says. \"This was even before the pandemic! Or, when they get ready to get off, they say 'Bye, bus driver!' and they cough.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of this, Brown says, he hopes he'll be getting the vaccine, \"as soon as I can.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As another semester gets under way, more than half of U.S. public school students are learning in front of tablets and laptops, according to the organization Burbio. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to try to open most schools within his first hundred days in office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to make opening schools safer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classed school staff as \"frontline essential workers\" — meaning they're among the earliest in line to get the new coronavirus vaccines. But access and timelines vary around the country, and some teachers remain worried about coronavirus continuing to spread in schools, even if they themselves can get the shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Per federal vaccination guidelines, school personnel — including custodians, food service workers, and bus drivers — along with child care providers, are in category 1b, just after the elderly in long-term care facilities and health care workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grace Lee, the chief medical officer for practice innovation and pediatric infectious disease physician at Stanford Children's Health, sat on the committee that drew up those recommendations. She said they put education workers so high up on the list because she's concerned about the social and academic effects of prolonged school closures. \"My worry is that some children are being left behind, and that we need to really be able to make sure that there is the opportunity for everyone to be educated.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some states, school workers have already begun to receive vaccines, or expect to in the coming days. NPR asked teachers on Twitter how they felt about getting the vaccine, and got an outpouring of more than 2,000 responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most, like Don Brown in Illinois, were eager to get theirs. But few were as emphatic, or poetic, as Cheryl Coker, who teaches elementary music in Houston:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I would take it in a box, I would take it with a fox. I would take it in a house, I would take it with a mouse. Vaccinate me here or there, vaccinate me anywhere.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Lions' Den \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Regardless of federal guidelines, states are setting their own priority lists. And in states like Utah and Texas, educators have been in tense discussions with state leaders over vaccine priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Utah, where most schools are fully or partially open, Heidi Matthews is president of the state's largest teacher union, which fought to get teachers moved up the list. She notes that the state historically has among the \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass0708_2009324_t1s_08.asp\">largest average class sizes\u003c/a> in the nation. \"I mean, we can't keep our desks six inches apart, much less do any sort of social distancing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says, \"many of our teachers feel like they have been forced into that proverbial lion's den.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which raises a question that has challenged educators and public health experts since the pandemic began: Are classrooms that dangerous when it comes to coronavirus? That's the subject of \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/1/4/22214312/covid-spread-schools-research\">two\u003c/a> new \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/07/953961009/where-is-it-safe-to-reopen-schools-new-research-offers-answers\">studies\u003c/a>. Both found schools that can operate safely, with precautions, as long as community spread is not too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in most places in the United States, COVID-19 is surging out of control. And that means mixed feelings at this moment for educators, especially where school buildings are open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I reached Michael Hinojosa, the superintendent of the Dallas public schools, he had just struck a deal to use one of his fieldhouses as a vaccination site, both for his staff and for the local community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I feel that we've finally been listened to. During this whole pandemic, we've been the lost voice out there,\" he said, referring to educators. But it's hard to celebrate, he added, when cases are rising: \"I think it's still going to be horrible between now and spring break. But now I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a freight train.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Logistics and \"Excruciating choices\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Kentucky, where schools were ordered closed due to COVID-19 surges in November, Commissioner of Education Jason Glass talked about the logistical challenges of getting shots in arms, which he hopes will begin in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First of all, his Department of Education asked all school staff, both public and private, to put in their names to get the vaccine, which in turn determined how many doses the Department of Public Health would order. The request went out over the December holidays. Around 82,000 people quickly put up their hands, or roughly 9 in 10 of the relevant staff members in school systems like Louisville's.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, local public health departments are busy standing up vaccine sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have contracts that are in development right now with grocery stores, with commercial pharmacies, big retail stores like Walmart, those are all options.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally comes a set of what Glass calls excruciating choices. \"We're gonna have scarcity associated with the vaccine,\" he explained, which means asking:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In what order do people get it? Should those who are older or have pre-existing conditions go first? What about school staff who have the most face-to-face contact with students? Or communities of color that have been disproportionately harmed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Those are all variables that I think have to be taken into account.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Hesitation\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An \u003cem>Education Week \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-workers-may-get-early-shot-at-covid-19-vaccine-will-they-take-it/2020/12\">survey of teachers\u003c/a> taken in November found just over 1 in 4 expressing some hesitation about lining up for their shots, somewhat on par with the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick Harris, who teaches middle school humanities at the Roeper School in the Detroit area, says that while he is ultimately willing to take the vaccine, \"the hesitation that I have is just thinking about long-term impacts that are not necessarily known.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Harris says, members of his family, including his 100-year-old grandmother, are dead-set against it: \"My parents, my grandparents, the older black folks in my family, you know, they are like, 'I'm not getting the vaccine first, if at all, and you better not either.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many polls have shown more vaccine-hesitancy among African Americans, a legacy of centuries of what the medical ethicist Harriet Washington calls \"medical apartheid.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For educators like Harris who have yet to go back to work in person, the stakes of getting a vaccine are different. Many of the school systems that have remained all remote are in cities, serving large numbers of Black and Hispanic students whose communities have been hit hard by the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarice Brazas teaches humanities, currently online at The U School, a Philadelphia public high school. Brazas says she'll be happy to get the vaccine, but she'll still be worried about her students spreading the virus, especially those who use public transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I work in a really small high school,\" she says, \"but we've already had several students who have either lost parents or whose parents have been hospitalized. A lot of our students live with their grandparents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No vaccine has yet been approved for children under 16, and younger people are at the back of the line according to CDC guidelines. Dr. Lee, at Stanford, says that means masks, handwashing, social distancing and ventilation are here to stay for at least the rest of this school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Vaccines in my mind are another layer of protection,\" she said. \"It doesn't mean all the other barriers go away, but it does mean that if we add that layer in, it adds a huge degree of protection that does not always depend on everyone being perfect one hundred percent of the time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Amid+Surges%2C+Teachers+Line+Up+For+Their+Vaccines&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Don Brown has been driving a school bus for more than 20 years in the Chicago area. And for all that time, he's noticed one odd student habit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As they climb aboard his bus, \"when they get to the top step, they always cough,\" he says. \"This was even before the pandemic! Or, when they get ready to get off, they say 'Bye, bus driver!' and they cough.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of this, Brown says, he hopes he'll be getting the vaccine, \"as soon as I can.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As another semester gets under way, more than half of U.S. public school students are learning in front of tablets and laptops, according to the organization Burbio. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to try to open most schools within his first hundred days in office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to make opening schools safer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classed school staff as \"frontline essential workers\" — meaning they're among the earliest in line to get the new coronavirus vaccines. But access and timelines vary around the country, and some teachers remain worried about coronavirus continuing to spread in schools, even if they themselves can get the shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Per federal vaccination guidelines, school personnel — including custodians, food service workers, and bus drivers — along with child care providers, are in category 1b, just after the elderly in long-term care facilities and health care workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grace Lee, the chief medical officer for practice innovation and pediatric infectious disease physician at Stanford Children's Health, sat on the committee that drew up those recommendations. She said they put education workers so high up on the list because she's concerned about the social and academic effects of prolonged school closures. \"My worry is that some children are being left behind, and that we need to really be able to make sure that there is the opportunity for everyone to be educated.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some states, school workers have already begun to receive vaccines, or expect to in the coming days. NPR asked teachers on Twitter how they felt about getting the vaccine, and got an outpouring of more than 2,000 responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most, like Don Brown in Illinois, were eager to get theirs. But few were as emphatic, or poetic, as Cheryl Coker, who teaches elementary music in Houston:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I would take it in a box, I would take it with a fox. I would take it in a house, I would take it with a mouse. Vaccinate me here or there, vaccinate me anywhere.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Lions' Den \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Regardless of federal guidelines, states are setting their own priority lists. And in states like Utah and Texas, educators have been in tense discussions with state leaders over vaccine priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Utah, where most schools are fully or partially open, Heidi Matthews is president of the state's largest teacher union, which fought to get teachers moved up the list. She notes that the state historically has among the \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass0708_2009324_t1s_08.asp\">largest average class sizes\u003c/a> in the nation. \"I mean, we can't keep our desks six inches apart, much less do any sort of social distancing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says, \"many of our teachers feel like they have been forced into that proverbial lion's den.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which raises a question that has challenged educators and public health experts since the pandemic began: Are classrooms that dangerous when it comes to coronavirus? That's the subject of \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/1/4/22214312/covid-spread-schools-research\">two\u003c/a> new \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/07/953961009/where-is-it-safe-to-reopen-schools-new-research-offers-answers\">studies\u003c/a>. Both found schools that can operate safely, with precautions, as long as community spread is not too high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in most places in the United States, COVID-19 is surging out of control. And that means mixed feelings at this moment for educators, especially where school buildings are open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I reached Michael Hinojosa, the superintendent of the Dallas public schools, he had just struck a deal to use one of his fieldhouses as a vaccination site, both for his staff and for the local community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I feel that we've finally been listened to. During this whole pandemic, we've been the lost voice out there,\" he said, referring to educators. But it's hard to celebrate, he added, when cases are rising: \"I think it's still going to be horrible between now and spring break. But now I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not a freight train.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Logistics and \"Excruciating choices\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Kentucky, where schools were ordered closed due to COVID-19 surges in November, Commissioner of Education Jason Glass talked about the logistical challenges of getting shots in arms, which he hopes will begin in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First of all, his Department of Education asked all school staff, both public and private, to put in their names to get the vaccine, which in turn determined how many doses the Department of Public Health would order. The request went out over the December holidays. Around 82,000 people quickly put up their hands, or roughly 9 in 10 of the relevant staff members in school systems like Louisville's.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, local public health departments are busy standing up vaccine sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have contracts that are in development right now with grocery stores, with commercial pharmacies, big retail stores like Walmart, those are all options.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally comes a set of what Glass calls excruciating choices. \"We're gonna have scarcity associated with the vaccine,\" he explained, which means asking:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In what order do people get it? Should those who are older or have pre-existing conditions go first? What about school staff who have the most face-to-face contact with students? Or communities of color that have been disproportionately harmed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Those are all variables that I think have to be taken into account.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Hesitation\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An \u003cem>Education Week \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-workers-may-get-early-shot-at-covid-19-vaccine-will-they-take-it/2020/12\">survey of teachers\u003c/a> taken in November found just over 1 in 4 expressing some hesitation about lining up for their shots, somewhat on par with the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick Harris, who teaches middle school humanities at the Roeper School in the Detroit area, says that while he is ultimately willing to take the vaccine, \"the hesitation that I have is just thinking about long-term impacts that are not necessarily known.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Harris says, members of his family, including his 100-year-old grandmother, are dead-set against it: \"My parents, my grandparents, the older black folks in my family, you know, they are like, 'I'm not getting the vaccine first, if at all, and you better not either.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many polls have shown more vaccine-hesitancy among African Americans, a legacy of centuries of what the medical ethicist Harriet Washington calls \"medical apartheid.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For educators like Harris who have yet to go back to work in person, the stakes of getting a vaccine are different. Many of the school systems that have remained all remote are in cities, serving large numbers of Black and Hispanic students whose communities have been hit hard by the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarice Brazas teaches humanities, currently online at The U School, a Philadelphia public high school. Brazas says she'll be happy to get the vaccine, but she'll still be worried about her students spreading the virus, especially those who use public transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I work in a really small high school,\" she says, \"but we've already had several students who have either lost parents or whose parents have been hospitalized. A lot of our students live with their grandparents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No vaccine has yet been approved for children under 16, and younger people are at the back of the line according to CDC guidelines. Dr. Lee, at Stanford, says that means masks, handwashing, social distancing and ventilation are here to stay for at least the rest of this school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Vaccines in my mind are another layer of protection,\" she said. \"It doesn't mean all the other barriers go away, but it does mean that if we add that layer in, it adds a huge degree of protection that does not always depend on everyone being perfect one hundred percent of the time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Amid+Surges%2C+Teachers+Line+Up+For+Their+Vaccines&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "A Quiet And 'Unsettling' Pandemic Toll: Students Who've Fallen Off The Grid",
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"content": "\u003cp>For American families and their children, school is more than just a building. It's a social life and a community, an athletic center and a place to get meals that aren't available at home. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted — and continues to disrupt — the lives of U.S. students in profound ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many kids haven't set foot in their schools since March, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/the-coronavirus-spring-the-historic-closing-of-u-s-schools-a-timeline/2020/07#:~:text=April%2017%3A%20More%20states%20close,the%202019%2D20%20school%20year.\">most in-person schooling shut down\u003c/a> across the United States. Teachers are working tirelessly to educate their students online, but they are growing increasingly anxious about the kids who aren't showing up at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated \u003ca href=\"https://bellwethereducation.org/publication/missing-margins-estimating-scale-covid-19-attendance-crisis#How%20did%20you%20estimate%201-3%20million%20missing%20students?\">3 million students\u003c/a> may have dropped out of school learning since March, according to Bellwether Education Partners, a national nonprofit that focuses on underserved youth. The group's study cited a lack of Internet access, housing insecurity, disabilities and language barriers as major obstacles to attending virtual classes during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is really, really unsettling,\" says Alex, a teacher in western Virginia, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of repercussions for speaking out. \"I think people don't realize how much we need to see these kids. A lot of times in schools, we are the first line for seeing signs of child abuse, for seeing signs of food insecurity. And you don't have that with virtual students. Especially when they ghost.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That \"ghosting\" is a constant problem for school employees who track attendance in both urban and rural districts. Staying connected to students with little to no Internet access has become impossible in many cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They find ways to disappear when they don't want to be found,\" says Karen Smith, who has been an educator for more than three decades and teaches high school English in a rural area on Maryland's Eastern Shore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Many of our students and even our faculty and staff don't have reliable Internet,\" she says. \"We experimented with portable Wi-Fi, and in our neck of the woods, that's not really a feasible thing because you have to have a signal to bounce off of. And in some cases, they're rural enough that they don't have that option.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Located about 150 miles northwest of Smith's school district, Baltimore might seem like a different world. But families in Evan Murray's urban school district face many of the same challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Wi-Fi has been problematic for everybody,\" says Murray, who has worked in education for 13 years. He's now employed by Baltimore City Public Schools as a community school site specialist, communicating with students and their families about what they need for both their academic and nonacademic lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith's and Murray's two Maryland communities have nearly identical poverty levels, hovering just above 20%. So when a student is absent, missed lessons aren't the only concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our kids already rely on the teachers and the staff for a lot of different levels of support,\" such as food and health care resources, Murray says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have a bunch of kids who rely on the morning breakfast and lunch programs to eat throughout the day,\" he continues. \"We need to communicate and check on our babies, our scholars, and make sure they're fine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith, in rural Maryland, is worried about that too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's really created a hardship for those families, and I think that is one of the reasons that there's been such a push to go back to school in person,\" she says, also noting that schools act as child care for many working parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic has made life unpredictable, and teachers see that reflected in class participation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Some of the students are in and out of touch,\" says Smith. \"There's one student that I haven't heard from her in, I don't know how long.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith says she has been trying to reach the student by phone but senses that she might be dealing with a precarious family situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think they're hesitant to be upfront about what's going on at home sometimes,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Smith lost her own Internet access at home about 10 minutes before class was supposed to start. After that, she decided to start working out of the empty school building. The loud, buzzing hallways she remembers, filled with young voices and bodies, are now silent. After a few minutes, the motion-sensitive lights go off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing she and her colleagues often think about is how they don't necessarily even know what their students look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They could walk in my room, face-to-face, and I would have absolutely no idea,\" she says. \"I don't even know if I've heard their voices.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, Murray of the Baltimore schools says he spent a lot of time doing things like getting uniforms for kids and making parents feel involved. Now, his job deals largely with technology issues — getting tablets and other equipment out to students' homes, assuming he has the correct address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otherwise, he spends much of his workday on the phone, trying to track down students who have fallen off the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent day, he says he spent two hours — from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. — trying to contact 13 kids. \"We have to, because there are still a number of students we haven't gotten, we haven't made contact with.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are wrong numbers, kids who are tracked down to a different state, and home visits — when they were happening — where no one comes to the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Echoing Smith's experience in rural Maryland, Murray says he thinks there is shame or embarrassment, from students or their families, behind those unanswered messages and knocks on the doors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And amid worries that some of the temporary student absences could become permanent, Murray says schools need to be relentless in their outreach efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can't go in this like you're waiting and wishing for students to come back,\" he says. \"It's not going to happen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Quiet+And+%27Unsettling%27+Pandemic+Toll%3A+Students+Who%27ve+Fallen+Off+The+Grid&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\"People don't realize how much we need to see these kids,\" says a teacher, noting teachers are often the first to see signs of child abuse or food insecurity. The problem spans rural and urban areas.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For American families and their children, school is more than just a building. It's a social life and a community, an athletic center and a place to get meals that aren't available at home. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted — and continues to disrupt — the lives of U.S. students in profound ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many kids haven't set foot in their schools since March, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/the-coronavirus-spring-the-historic-closing-of-u-s-schools-a-timeline/2020/07#:~:text=April%2017%3A%20More%20states%20close,the%202019%2D20%20school%20year.\">most in-person schooling shut down\u003c/a> across the United States. Teachers are working tirelessly to educate their students online, but they are growing increasingly anxious about the kids who aren't showing up at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated \u003ca href=\"https://bellwethereducation.org/publication/missing-margins-estimating-scale-covid-19-attendance-crisis#How%20did%20you%20estimate%201-3%20million%20missing%20students?\">3 million students\u003c/a> may have dropped out of school learning since March, according to Bellwether Education Partners, a national nonprofit that focuses on underserved youth. The group's study cited a lack of Internet access, housing insecurity, disabilities and language barriers as major obstacles to attending virtual classes during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is really, really unsettling,\" says Alex, a teacher in western Virginia, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of repercussions for speaking out. \"I think people don't realize how much we need to see these kids. A lot of times in schools, we are the first line for seeing signs of child abuse, for seeing signs of food insecurity. And you don't have that with virtual students. Especially when they ghost.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That \"ghosting\" is a constant problem for school employees who track attendance in both urban and rural districts. Staying connected to students with little to no Internet access has become impossible in many cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They find ways to disappear when they don't want to be found,\" says Karen Smith, who has been an educator for more than three decades and teaches high school English in a rural area on Maryland's Eastern Shore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Many of our students and even our faculty and staff don't have reliable Internet,\" she says. \"We experimented with portable Wi-Fi, and in our neck of the woods, that's not really a feasible thing because you have to have a signal to bounce off of. And in some cases, they're rural enough that they don't have that option.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Located about 150 miles northwest of Smith's school district, Baltimore might seem like a different world. But families in Evan Murray's urban school district face many of the same challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Wi-Fi has been problematic for everybody,\" says Murray, who has worked in education for 13 years. He's now employed by Baltimore City Public Schools as a community school site specialist, communicating with students and their families about what they need for both their academic and nonacademic lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith's and Murray's two Maryland communities have nearly identical poverty levels, hovering just above 20%. So when a student is absent, missed lessons aren't the only concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our kids already rely on the teachers and the staff for a lot of different levels of support,\" such as food and health care resources, Murray says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have a bunch of kids who rely on the morning breakfast and lunch programs to eat throughout the day,\" he continues. \"We need to communicate and check on our babies, our scholars, and make sure they're fine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith, in rural Maryland, is worried about that too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's really created a hardship for those families, and I think that is one of the reasons that there's been such a push to go back to school in person,\" she says, also noting that schools act as child care for many working parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic has made life unpredictable, and teachers see that reflected in class participation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Some of the students are in and out of touch,\" says Smith. \"There's one student that I haven't heard from her in, I don't know how long.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith says she has been trying to reach the student by phone but senses that she might be dealing with a precarious family situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think they're hesitant to be upfront about what's going on at home sometimes,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Smith lost her own Internet access at home about 10 minutes before class was supposed to start. After that, she decided to start working out of the empty school building. The loud, buzzing hallways she remembers, filled with young voices and bodies, are now silent. After a few minutes, the motion-sensitive lights go off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing she and her colleagues often think about is how they don't necessarily even know what their students look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They could walk in my room, face-to-face, and I would have absolutely no idea,\" she says. \"I don't even know if I've heard their voices.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, Murray of the Baltimore schools says he spent a lot of time doing things like getting uniforms for kids and making parents feel involved. Now, his job deals largely with technology issues — getting tablets and other equipment out to students' homes, assuming he has the correct address.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otherwise, he spends much of his workday on the phone, trying to track down students who have fallen off the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent day, he says he spent two hours — from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. — trying to contact 13 kids. \"We have to, because there are still a number of students we haven't gotten, we haven't made contact with.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are wrong numbers, kids who are tracked down to a different state, and home visits — when they were happening — where no one comes to the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Echoing Smith's experience in rural Maryland, Murray says he thinks there is shame or embarrassment, from students or their families, behind those unanswered messages and knocks on the doors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And amid worries that some of the temporary student absences could become permanent, Murray says schools need to be relentless in their outreach efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can't go in this like you're waiting and wishing for students to come back,\" he says. \"It's not going to happen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Quiet+And+%27Unsettling%27+Pandemic+Toll%3A+Students+Who%27ve+Fallen+Off+The+Grid&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Fall College Enrollment Plummets For 1st-Year Students",
"title": "Fall College Enrollment Plummets For 1st-Year Students",
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"content": "\u003cp>All throughout high school, Brian Williams planned to go to college. But as the pandemic eroded the final moments of his senior year, the Stafford, Texas, student began to second-guess that plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm terrible at online school,\" Williams says. He was barely interested in logging on for his final weeks of high school; being online for his first semester at Houston Community College felt unbearable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I know what works best for me, and doing stuff on the computer doesn't really stimulate me in the same way an actual class would.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paying for college was always going to be hard, but it was even harder to justify the expense during a pandemic. \"We had no money for it,\" he says, \"and I'm not trying to go into debt and pay that for the rest of my life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wondered if college in 2020 was \"really worth it.\" So he postponed and instead got a job at Jimmy John's so he could start saving up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams is one of hundreds of thousands of students who decided to put off higher education this year. According to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse, \u003ca href=\"https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/\">undergraduate enrollment this fall declined by 3.6% from the fall of 2019\u003c/a>. That's more than 560,000 students and twice the rate of enrollment decline seen last year. Most of that decline occurred at community colleges, where enrollment fell by more than 10%, or more than 544,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57128\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/brian-williams_stafford-tx_005-27055c1661bf5c65708619eaf6e33521932af644-scaled-e1608281205646.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Williams graduated from high school last spring. He thought he would go straight to college but second-guessed his plan after getting a taste of distance learning. \"I'm terrible at online school,\" he says. \u003ccite>(Scott Dalton for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"To see this level of decline all at once is so sudden and so dramatic,\" says Doug Shapiro, who leads the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse. \"It's completely unprecedented.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students attending college for the first time represent one of the largest groups missing from college classes this fall, Shapiro says. For students who graduated from high school in the class of 2020, the number of graduates enrolling in college is \u003ca href=\"https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/nscblog/high-school-class-of-2020-college-enrollments-decline-22-compared-to-2019-class/\">down by 21.7% compared with last year\u003c/a>, based on preliminary data. For graduates at high-poverty high schools there was a 32.6% decline in attending college, compared with a 16.4% decline for graduates of low-poverty schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's a lot of individuals whose lives are on hold, whose career and educational aspirations are suspended,\" says Shapiro. \"You can almost think of this as an entire generation that will enter adulthood with lower education, lower skills, less employability, ultimately lower productivity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shapiro says the pandemic is largely to blame for this year's drastic declines, but it's also true that attending college has been on a decade-long downward trend. College enrollment nationwide \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students-are-going-to-college-heres-why-that-matters\">fell 11% between 2011 and 2019\u003c/a>, the Clearinghouse found.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Undergraduate And Graduate Student Enrollment Fell 2.5% From Fall\u003cspan class=\"widont\"> \u003c/span>2019\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57135\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57135 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment.png 600w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment-160x91.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 460,000 fewer students enrolled in U.S. colleges this fall than in fall 2019. Source: \u003ca href=\"https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/\">National Student Clearinghouse Research Center\u003c/a> Credit: Daniel Wood and Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fewer people going to college and getting a degree spells trouble for individual families, for communities and for the U.S. economy as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There is a much larger implication here for the country,\" says Angel Pérez, who oversees the National Association for College Admission Counseling. \"The fact is if we lose an entire generation of young people in the pipeline to college, that will have an impact on our tax base. It will have an impact on an educated citizenry.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\"A very bad financial time\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For colleges, lower enrollment means fewer tuition dollars, which translates to a drop in revenue at a time when college budgets were already strained because of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, colleges have begun to tighten their belts. In October, Ithaca College, a private college in upstate New York, announced \u003ca href=\"https://theithacan.org/news/ic-to-cut-130-faculty-positions-due-to-low-enrollment/\">plans to cut about 130 faculty positions\u003c/a> to deal with falling enrollment. That's in addition to pandemic-related cuts the college made in April. Across the country institutions have announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.chronicle.com/article/were-tracking-employees-laid-off-or-furloughed-by-colleges/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in\">furloughs and layoffs\u003c/a>; they've \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-sports-cuts-gymnastics-swimming-pandemic-60-minutes-2020-12-06/\">canceled sports,\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://kansaspublicradio.org/kpr-news/coronavirus-could-end-history-math-and-chemistry-majors-universities-kansas\">majors \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2020/12/03/uvm-proposals-cut-12-majors-other-programs-respond-deficit/3806864001/\">even entire departments\u003c/a>. More than 50 universities have suspended admissions to their Ph.D. programs, \u003ca href=\"https://www.chronicle.com/article/more-doctoral-programs-suspend-admissions-that-could-have-lasting-effects-on-graduate-education?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in\">\u003cem>The Chronicle of Higher Education\u003c/em> found\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"To be blunt, we are in a very bad financial time for higher education, and the most unfortunate part is I don't see that we have sort of reached the bottom yet,\" says Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What determines how bad this eventually gets are things like what is the federal government doing? How much funding does the federal government give out to states? How much funding does the federal government give out to individual higher education institutions to help them?\" she says. \"If we're not seeing a significant investment in higher education, this is going to become much more widespread.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without federal or state money, colleges may look to increase tuition to offset budget shortfalls. In Florida, there's talk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-florida-university-tuition-20201127-hqivzdfmd5eatk2atdyinnx4uy-story.html\">raising tuition\u003c/a> at public institutions for the first time in several years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even after the pandemic is over, colleges won't be out of the woods. They're still facing a demographic cliff. The number of U.S. high school graduates is expected to peak by 2025, buoyed by nonwhite students, then decline through the end of 2037, \u003ca href=\"https://knocking.wiche.edu/executive-summary/\">according to projections by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education\u003c/a>. In other words, the pool of eligible college students is shrinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Historically, when colleges and universities had financial challenges, the answer was always to go to the chief enrollment officer and say, 'Bring us more students,\" Pérez explains. \"That option no longer exists.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two bright spots in the new fall enrollment numbers: There were increases in enrollment at graduate schools — mainly in short-term certificate and master's programs, Shapiro says — and enrollment went up at for-profit colleges, many of which had previous experience with online learning, so were well-positioned to take on students during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For-profit colleges have lower graduation rates compared to public colleges, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_326.10.asp\">federal data shows\u003c/a>. They tend to enroll the same types of students that go to community colleges, though tuition is often much higher. For-profits also \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/research/commercials-for-college-advertising-in-higher-education/\">spend more on advertising\u003c/a>, a factor that may have enticed students uncertain about what college would look like at brick-and-mortar institutions. Baker worries that for-profits may have scooped up students who would otherwise have enrolled in community colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Community colleges do not have the money to market themselves in the way that a for-profit institution does,\" she says. \"They're just less nimble.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A shock for community colleges\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At community colleges, the financial situation is also less fixable. Budgets are already tight, and raising tuition goes against the core of their mission: to be an affordable, open-access institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Community colleges are an area of higher education that our country, and often states, have systematically underfunded,\" Baker says. At the same time, she explains, \"they do the lion's share of educating students in the United States.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Low-income students are \u003ca href=\"https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html#:~:text=How%20does%20the%20population%20of,Latino%2C%20and%2046%25%20White.\">more likely to attend community colleges\u003c/a>, as are nonwhite students. Baker says that when community colleges are hurting, it also hurts the students they serve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The financial situation, the enrollment situation, this is not an issue that is hitting all students in the same way,\" Baker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, students flock to community colleges when unemployment is high. Bill Pink, the president of Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, says that's what everyone expected to happen this year: \" 'Community colleges, you guys are going to clean up. You guys are not going to have room for all these people!' That is so wrong.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/121320_npr_rileyborup_jt_010_slide-becc25d17ca349a131843754b6c455be49090855-scaled-e1608281757140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Riley Borup collects garbage bags at an apartment complex in Lynnwood, Wash. Frustrated by distance learning, Borup dropped out of his engineering program at Everett Community College to take a job as a trash collector. \u003ccite>(Jovelle Tamayo for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In late September, Pink says, fall enrollment at GRCC was down about 9% from the year before. Pink sees a few factors influencing this drop. The biggest is finances — he says students and their families are squeezed right now, despite the low cost of tuition at most community colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other thing holding people back is the idea of learning online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Students say: 'You know what? Instead of trying to navigate online learning that I'm not really accustomed to, I'm just going to sit it out. I'm just going to work. I'm going to take a year or a semester off,'\" Pink explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what Riley Borup decided this spring. He's in his late 20s, and after working as a plumber for his father for several years, he decided to enroll at Everett Community College, 40 minutes north of Seattle, to study engineering. In March, he was learning about circuit boards and enjoying it, but when classes shifted to virtual, it didn't take long for Borup to decide online learning wasn't for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The circuit board, it would have been so much easier to do in person,\" he says. \"You do the Zoom thing and it's like, man, I want the professor to just point this out to me in person.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With campus closed, his college routine was thrown into chaos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I looked at college like a full-time job,\" Borup says. \"I'd try to stay on campus for at least 40 hours a week.\" At home, he had trouble focusing. There were dogs and roommates to distract him. So Borup decided to withdraw from school and pick up a job as a part-time garbage collector to pass the time and pay the rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/121320_npr_rileyborup_jt_016_slide-b17c2403c87f40454fe8727f830b90dd9acbb82e-scaled-e1608281797573.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Borup plans to return to school this spring, but he says some days he loses faith that he'll ever get his degree. \"It's definitely like an internal battle.\" \u003ccite>(Jovelle Tamayo for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He says there are some days when he loses faith that he'll ever go back to school. \"It's definitely like an internal battle where sometimes I'm like, 'I might just join the military,' \" he says. \"But then I'm like, 'This is my goal. I'm going to stick with it.' And I've told a lot of people, family, friends, so it's kind of for them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, he adds, \"I wouldn't respect myself if I just dropped off. I've already put over a year into it, so it's like I'm not going to waste the last year.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borup says he is \"very aware\" of the delay this break is causing — instead of getting a degree in 2023, graduation in 2024 is more likely. The plan for now is to take one online class in the spring to see if he can ease back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Losing a generation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Catalina Cifuentes, who works to promote college access in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, the number of students who decided not to go to college worries her. \"It really does feel like we're losing a generation,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students in her county are mostly from low-income families, and many would be the first in their family to go to college. \"They don't know what they don't know,\" she says. \"They don't know that research shows the longer you're out of school, the less likely you are to return.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her students are calling their break a \"gap year,\" but Cifuentes says it's not the kind of gap year wealthier students might experience. \"They're working, and their families are getting used to that extra paycheck. That's going to be really hard to give up for school.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she thinks back to the spring, Cifuentes isn't surprised so many 2020 high school graduates didn't enroll in college this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were in survival mode. We went into making sure students had food, housing, basic needs,\" she says. \"Things like college and college applications, they take a backseat.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she's seeing the same pattern play out for this year's high school seniors, the class of 2021. \"We're trying to get them to come to class, to log on. If it was bad in the spring and summer for college conversations, this is worse. We were in the back seat before. Now we're outside of the car.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is data to support Cifuentes' concerns about this year's seniors. As of Dec. 4, the number of students who had filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, \u003ca href=\"https://public.tableau.com/profile/bill.debaun.national.college.access.network#!/vizhome/FormYourFutureFAFSATracker/HomePage\">was down 14%\u003c/a> compared with the same time last year. The drop is even more dramatic among low-income and nonwhite students. Colleges, \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calstate.edu/apply\">including the 23 campuses in the California State system\u003c/a>, pushed back their application deadlines to allow more students to apply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Cifuentes and her staff have been taking to the phones, calling students to help them with their college applications. And she's not giving up on the class of 2020 either. \"I'm really hopeful that students will go back,\" she says. \"It's not too late.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Williams, who decided to forgo college in Houston and is now working at Jimmy John's, says he's \"working long hours and saving a lot of money.\" He's recently been promoted to manager, and though he's enjoying the bigger paycheck and more responsibility, he hasn't given up on the idea of getting his degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"So far this year I've really grown mentally and financially,\" he says, \"and when the time comes for college, I'll be ready.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he plans to enroll at his local community college next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Education Desk intern Marco Treviño contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Losing+A+Generation%27%3A+Fall+College+Enrollment+Plummets+For+1st-Year+Students&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>All throughout high school, Brian Williams planned to go to college. But as the pandemic eroded the final moments of his senior year, the Stafford, Texas, student began to second-guess that plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm terrible at online school,\" Williams says. He was barely interested in logging on for his final weeks of high school; being online for his first semester at Houston Community College felt unbearable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I know what works best for me, and doing stuff on the computer doesn't really stimulate me in the same way an actual class would.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paying for college was always going to be hard, but it was even harder to justify the expense during a pandemic. \"We had no money for it,\" he says, \"and I'm not trying to go into debt and pay that for the rest of my life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wondered if college in 2020 was \"really worth it.\" So he postponed and instead got a job at Jimmy John's so he could start saving up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williams is one of hundreds of thousands of students who decided to put off higher education this year. According to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse, \u003ca href=\"https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/\">undergraduate enrollment this fall declined by 3.6% from the fall of 2019\u003c/a>. That's more than 560,000 students and twice the rate of enrollment decline seen last year. Most of that decline occurred at community colleges, where enrollment fell by more than 10%, or more than 544,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57128\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57128\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/brian-williams_stafford-tx_005-27055c1661bf5c65708619eaf6e33521932af644-scaled-e1608281205646.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Williams graduated from high school last spring. He thought he would go straight to college but second-guessed his plan after getting a taste of distance learning. \"I'm terrible at online school,\" he says. \u003ccite>(Scott Dalton for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"To see this level of decline all at once is so sudden and so dramatic,\" says Doug Shapiro, who leads the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse. \"It's completely unprecedented.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students attending college for the first time represent one of the largest groups missing from college classes this fall, Shapiro says. For students who graduated from high school in the class of 2020, the number of graduates enrolling in college is \u003ca href=\"https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/nscblog/high-school-class-of-2020-college-enrollments-decline-22-compared-to-2019-class/\">down by 21.7% compared with last year\u003c/a>, based on preliminary data. For graduates at high-poverty high schools there was a 32.6% decline in attending college, compared with a 16.4% decline for graduates of low-poverty schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's a lot of individuals whose lives are on hold, whose career and educational aspirations are suspended,\" says Shapiro. \"You can almost think of this as an entire generation that will enter adulthood with lower education, lower skills, less employability, ultimately lower productivity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shapiro says the pandemic is largely to blame for this year's drastic declines, but it's also true that attending college has been on a decade-long downward trend. College enrollment nationwide \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students-are-going-to-college-heres-why-that-matters\">fell 11% between 2011 and 2019\u003c/a>, the Clearinghouse found.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>Undergraduate And Graduate Student Enrollment Fell 2.5% From Fall\u003cspan class=\"widont\"> \u003c/span>2019\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57135\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-57135 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment.png 600w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/Undergraduate-and-Graduate-Enrollment-160x91.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 460,000 fewer students enrolled in U.S. colleges this fall than in fall 2019. Source: \u003ca href=\"https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/\">National Student Clearinghouse Research Center\u003c/a> Credit: Daniel Wood and Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fewer people going to college and getting a degree spells trouble for individual families, for communities and for the U.S. economy as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There is a much larger implication here for the country,\" says Angel Pérez, who oversees the National Association for College Admission Counseling. \"The fact is if we lose an entire generation of young people in the pipeline to college, that will have an impact on our tax base. It will have an impact on an educated citizenry.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\"A very bad financial time\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For colleges, lower enrollment means fewer tuition dollars, which translates to a drop in revenue at a time when college budgets were already strained because of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, colleges have begun to tighten their belts. In October, Ithaca College, a private college in upstate New York, announced \u003ca href=\"https://theithacan.org/news/ic-to-cut-130-faculty-positions-due-to-low-enrollment/\">plans to cut about 130 faculty positions\u003c/a> to deal with falling enrollment. That's in addition to pandemic-related cuts the college made in April. Across the country institutions have announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.chronicle.com/article/were-tracking-employees-laid-off-or-furloughed-by-colleges/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in\">furloughs and layoffs\u003c/a>; they've \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-sports-cuts-gymnastics-swimming-pandemic-60-minutes-2020-12-06/\">canceled sports,\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://kansaspublicradio.org/kpr-news/coronavirus-could-end-history-math-and-chemistry-majors-universities-kansas\">majors \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2020/12/03/uvm-proposals-cut-12-majors-other-programs-respond-deficit/3806864001/\">even entire departments\u003c/a>. More than 50 universities have suspended admissions to their Ph.D. programs, \u003ca href=\"https://www.chronicle.com/article/more-doctoral-programs-suspend-admissions-that-could-have-lasting-effects-on-graduate-education?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in\">\u003cem>The Chronicle of Higher Education\u003c/em> found\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"To be blunt, we are in a very bad financial time for higher education, and the most unfortunate part is I don't see that we have sort of reached the bottom yet,\" says Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What determines how bad this eventually gets are things like what is the federal government doing? How much funding does the federal government give out to states? How much funding does the federal government give out to individual higher education institutions to help them?\" she says. \"If we're not seeing a significant investment in higher education, this is going to become much more widespread.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without federal or state money, colleges may look to increase tuition to offset budget shortfalls. In Florida, there's talk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-florida-university-tuition-20201127-hqivzdfmd5eatk2atdyinnx4uy-story.html\">raising tuition\u003c/a> at public institutions for the first time in several years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even after the pandemic is over, colleges won't be out of the woods. They're still facing a demographic cliff. The number of U.S. high school graduates is expected to peak by 2025, buoyed by nonwhite students, then decline through the end of 2037, \u003ca href=\"https://knocking.wiche.edu/executive-summary/\">according to projections by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education\u003c/a>. In other words, the pool of eligible college students is shrinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Historically, when colleges and universities had financial challenges, the answer was always to go to the chief enrollment officer and say, 'Bring us more students,\" Pérez explains. \"That option no longer exists.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two bright spots in the new fall enrollment numbers: There were increases in enrollment at graduate schools — mainly in short-term certificate and master's programs, Shapiro says — and enrollment went up at for-profit colleges, many of which had previous experience with online learning, so were well-positioned to take on students during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For-profit colleges have lower graduation rates compared to public colleges, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_326.10.asp\">federal data shows\u003c/a>. They tend to enroll the same types of students that go to community colleges, though tuition is often much higher. For-profits also \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/research/commercials-for-college-advertising-in-higher-education/\">spend more on advertising\u003c/a>, a factor that may have enticed students uncertain about what college would look like at brick-and-mortar institutions. Baker worries that for-profits may have scooped up students who would otherwise have enrolled in community colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Community colleges do not have the money to market themselves in the way that a for-profit institution does,\" she says. \"They're just less nimble.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A shock for community colleges\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At community colleges, the financial situation is also less fixable. Budgets are already tight, and raising tuition goes against the core of their mission: to be an affordable, open-access institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Community colleges are an area of higher education that our country, and often states, have systematically underfunded,\" Baker says. At the same time, she explains, \"they do the lion's share of educating students in the United States.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Low-income students are \u003ca href=\"https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html#:~:text=How%20does%20the%20population%20of,Latino%2C%20and%2046%25%20White.\">more likely to attend community colleges\u003c/a>, as are nonwhite students. Baker says that when community colleges are hurting, it also hurts the students they serve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The financial situation, the enrollment situation, this is not an issue that is hitting all students in the same way,\" Baker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, students flock to community colleges when unemployment is high. Bill Pink, the president of Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, says that's what everyone expected to happen this year: \" 'Community colleges, you guys are going to clean up. You guys are not going to have room for all these people!' That is so wrong.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/121320_npr_rileyborup_jt_010_slide-becc25d17ca349a131843754b6c455be49090855-scaled-e1608281757140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Riley Borup collects garbage bags at an apartment complex in Lynnwood, Wash. Frustrated by distance learning, Borup dropped out of his engineering program at Everett Community College to take a job as a trash collector. \u003ccite>(Jovelle Tamayo for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In late September, Pink says, fall enrollment at GRCC was down about 9% from the year before. Pink sees a few factors influencing this drop. The biggest is finances — he says students and their families are squeezed right now, despite the low cost of tuition at most community colleges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other thing holding people back is the idea of learning online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Students say: 'You know what? Instead of trying to navigate online learning that I'm not really accustomed to, I'm just going to sit it out. I'm just going to work. I'm going to take a year or a semester off,'\" Pink explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what Riley Borup decided this spring. He's in his late 20s, and after working as a plumber for his father for several years, he decided to enroll at Everett Community College, 40 minutes north of Seattle, to study engineering. In March, he was learning about circuit boards and enjoying it, but when classes shifted to virtual, it didn't take long for Borup to decide online learning wasn't for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The circuit board, it would have been so much easier to do in person,\" he says. \"You do the Zoom thing and it's like, man, I want the professor to just point this out to me in person.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With campus closed, his college routine was thrown into chaos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I looked at college like a full-time job,\" Borup says. \"I'd try to stay on campus for at least 40 hours a week.\" At home, he had trouble focusing. There were dogs and roommates to distract him. So Borup decided to withdraw from school and pick up a job as a part-time garbage collector to pass the time and pay the rent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_57131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-57131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2020/12/121320_npr_rileyborup_jt_016_slide-b17c2403c87f40454fe8727f830b90dd9acbb82e-scaled-e1608281797573.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Borup plans to return to school this spring, but he says some days he loses faith that he'll ever get his degree. \"It's definitely like an internal battle.\" \u003ccite>(Jovelle Tamayo for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He says there are some days when he loses faith that he'll ever go back to school. \"It's definitely like an internal battle where sometimes I'm like, 'I might just join the military,' \" he says. \"But then I'm like, 'This is my goal. I'm going to stick with it.' And I've told a lot of people, family, friends, so it's kind of for them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, he adds, \"I wouldn't respect myself if I just dropped off. I've already put over a year into it, so it's like I'm not going to waste the last year.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Borup says he is \"very aware\" of the delay this break is causing — instead of getting a degree in 2023, graduation in 2024 is more likely. The plan for now is to take one online class in the spring to see if he can ease back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Losing a generation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Catalina Cifuentes, who works to promote college access in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, the number of students who decided not to go to college worries her. \"It really does feel like we're losing a generation,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students in her county are mostly from low-income families, and many would be the first in their family to go to college. \"They don't know what they don't know,\" she says. \"They don't know that research shows the longer you're out of school, the less likely you are to return.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of her students are calling their break a \"gap year,\" but Cifuentes says it's not the kind of gap year wealthier students might experience. \"They're working, and their families are getting used to that extra paycheck. That's going to be really hard to give up for school.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she thinks back to the spring, Cifuentes isn't surprised so many 2020 high school graduates didn't enroll in college this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were in survival mode. We went into making sure students had food, housing, basic needs,\" she says. \"Things like college and college applications, they take a backseat.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she's seeing the same pattern play out for this year's high school seniors, the class of 2021. \"We're trying to get them to come to class, to log on. If it was bad in the spring and summer for college conversations, this is worse. We were in the back seat before. Now we're outside of the car.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is data to support Cifuentes' concerns about this year's seniors. As of Dec. 4, the number of students who had filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, \u003ca href=\"https://public.tableau.com/profile/bill.debaun.national.college.access.network#!/vizhome/FormYourFutureFAFSATracker/HomePage\">was down 14%\u003c/a> compared with the same time last year. The drop is even more dramatic among low-income and nonwhite students. Colleges, \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calstate.edu/apply\">including the 23 campuses in the California State system\u003c/a>, pushed back their application deadlines to allow more students to apply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Cifuentes and her staff have been taking to the phones, calling students to help them with their college applications. And she's not giving up on the class of 2020 either. \"I'm really hopeful that students will go back,\" she says. \"It's not too late.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Williams, who decided to forgo college in Houston and is now working at Jimmy John's, says he's \"working long hours and saving a lot of money.\" He's recently been promoted to manager, and though he's enjoying the bigger paycheck and more responsibility, he hasn't given up on the idea of getting his degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"So far this year I've really grown mentally and financially,\" he says, \"and when the time comes for college, I'll be ready.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he plans to enroll at his local community college next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Education Desk intern Marco Treviño contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Losing+A+Generation%27%3A+Fall+College+Enrollment+Plummets+For+1st-Year+Students&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://newark.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/15/22176662/newark-virtual-tutoring-learning-loss\">\u003cem>Newark schools are ramping up virtual tutoring. Will it be enough to combat pandemic learning loss? \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters \u003ca href=\"https://go.pardot.com/l/342281/2018-05-30/g27h9\">here.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As evidence mounts that the pandemic is inflicting academic harm on many students, some Newark schools are turning to a simple yet potentially potent treatment: tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city school district plans to train students to tutor their peers, and it recently launched a “homework hotline” where teachers work one-on-one with students over video chat. Some Newark charter schools are also bringing in tutors, including corporate volunteers at one school and AmeriCorps members at another. All the tutoring is happening virtually while classrooms are closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as schools race to offer students extra help, experts caution that only rigorous and frequent tutoring is likely to help reverse the learning loss caused by the pandemic. The patchwork of programs in cities such as Newark points to the need for \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">federally funded and coordinated\u003c/a> tutoring that is widespread and intensive enough to steer students back on track, \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/slavin-an-open-letter-to-president-elect-biden-a-tutoring-marshall-plan-to-heal-our-students/\">researchers say\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t expect all these schools to just reinvent the wheel for tutoring with all the coordination, curriculum, training, costs, and expertise it requires,” said Matthew Kraft, a Brown University professor who co-authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai20-335.pdf\">a new report\u003c/a> calling for a national tutoring program. “We need to support them to do so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">Data is piling up\u003c/a> that shows this spring’s school closures knocked many students off course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Testing this fall revealed that \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/students-falling-behind/2020/12/06/88d7157a-3665-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html\">students started this school year behind\u003c/a>, with progress stalling \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/1/21754406/learning-loss-data-spring-nwea-schools-covid\">most in math\u003c/a>; and students of color lost more ground than white students, according to at least \u003ca href=\"https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-learning-loss-disparities-grow-and-students-need-help\">one analysis\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, several districts are reporting a surge in students \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/7/22160183/students-struggle-with-remote-learning-teachers-grapple-with-failing-grades\">failing their fall classes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey, \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/10/30/21541724/learning-loss-school-districts-tests\">like most states\u003c/a>, did not mandate widespread testing this fall to measure academic backsliding. But in anticipation of probable learning loss, the state recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/education/2020/12/are-your-kids-falling-behind-in-school-nj-thinks-they-might-be.html\">said it would give grants\u003c/a> to 16 districts to help students catch up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As schools consider how best to help students rebound, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w27476\">large body of evidence\u003c/a> suggests that small-group tutoring is one of the most effective ways to boost student learning. England recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/8/10/21362664/england-national-tutoring-program-us-americorps-congress\">launched a national tutoring program\u003c/a> to address learning loss, and some \u003ca href=\"https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-millions-for-remote-learning-20200629-rsv45ehtnbfwpp3aqkwf74llpa-story.html\">states\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-09/tutoring-deal-for-los-angeles-students\">districts\u003c/a> in the United States have funded smaller efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are few interventions in education where the evidence is as compelling and overwhelming as it is for the efficacy of tutoring,” said Kraft, who co-authored the paper with Grace Falken calling for a massive, federally funded \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">expansion of tutoring\u003c/a> into every public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not all tutoring programs are equal. Kraft said the most effective programs keep student-to-tutor ratios low, schedule several sessions per week, and provide tutors with high-quality training and teaching materials. Tutoring usually works better during the school day because students are more likely to attend and take it seriously, said Kraft, who recommends lengthening the school day by 30 minutes to make time for tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Newark, the district is planning \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/nps.k12.nj.us/tutoring-site/home?authuser=0\">a suite of tutoring programs\u003c/a> this school year, according to documents and the district website. While still likely to benefit students, the programs might not feature all the hallmarks of effective tutoring, such as well-trained tutors and frequent sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through the district’s peer tutoring program, students in grades 3-11 will learn to coach their classmates. Teachers are responsible for choosing and training students to become tutors, according to district guidance. The guidance does not say how often tutoring will occur or what curriculum the student tutors will use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A district spokesperson would not answer questions or provide any information about the tutoring programs, and did not allow a school board member to be interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort was supposed to be up and running by October, but has yet to roll out to all schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/nps.k12.nj.us/tutoring-site/homework-hotline-schedule?authuser=0\">homework hotline\u003c/a> connects students with teachers who are on call from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Students can choose a teacher who specializes in the subject they need help with, then join the teacher’s video chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the hotline workers is Wilmarie Morales, a bilingual teacher at Ridge Street School. Last Wednesday, she met virtually with a Spanish-speaking sixth-grader who recently arrived from Ecuador and needed help understanding his assignments. On Thursday, she assisted a second-grader who logs on almost every afternoon. They worked on science, math, and spelling assignments, and read a book about Santa Claus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some kids, you’re on with them an hour; other kids, you’re on with them 10 minutes,” Morales said. “The kids enjoy it, they like it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hotline, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/NewarkPublicSchools/posts/1985079014967156\">began Nov. 30\u003c/a>, offers individual support. But with only about 20 teachers, the program can only serve a fraction of the district’s more than 36,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual schools also offer virtual afterschool programs that include tutoring. However, school staffers say that getting students to voluntarily attend after a full day of remote learning can be difficult. Yolanda Johnson, a parent advocate whose daughter has attended University High School’s afterschool program, said tutoring should be required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s critical right now,” she said. “School districts should make it mandatory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond tutoring, the district also created math and phonics “bootcamps” this fall, where elementary school teachers gave a series of lessons reviewing essential skills in those subjects. And through a partnership with the Newark Public Library, district teachers will record lessons on different topics that students can watch online. After a delay, the service will launch in January, a library official said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22172442/GOLCS_tutoring.jpg\">Patrick Wall/Chalkbeat\u003cfigcaption>An AmeriCorps fellow worked with Great Oaks Legacy Charter School students in 2019. During remote learning, the fellows are now tutoring students remotely.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Newark charter schools are also ramping up academic support this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Philip’s Academy Charter School, volunteers from Prudential Financial tutor struggling students over Zoom each Tuesday through a program called \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-actuarial-foundations-math-motivators-program-cracks-the-code-on-free-virtual-tutoring-301163320.html\">Math Motivators\u003c/a>. Teachers also offer small-group tutoring sessions every Saturday. And during two “intervention” periods each week, teachers review topics with small groups of students who need extra help while the rest use online-learning programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Principal Yasmeen Sampson said testing this fall showed that about half of students were starting below grade level. That prompted the school to schedule the hour-long intervention periods during the school day so all students have access to tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want students to be excluded from getting what they need,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Great Oaks Legacy Charter School offers tutoring that closely resembles what some \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2020/08/10/489168/opportunity-counseling-corps-helping-k-12-students-young-adults-recover-coronavirus-crisis/\">think tanks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.coons.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CORPS%20Act%20one%20pager%5b1%5d.pdf\">lawmakers\u003c/a> have proposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through \u003ca href=\"https://greatoakslegacy.org/join-our-team/tutor-corps/\">an AmeriCorps fellowship\u003c/a> that predated the pandemic, recent college graduates tutor small groups of students during a designated period each day. The full-time tutors also work with struggling students after school and on Saturdays. The school trains the tutors and teachers meet with them regularly to track student progress and plan lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You really need systems and oversight,” said Dr. Prudence Minton, chief academic officer of the network’s middle school. “That’s been the biggest part of the program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/em>\u003cimg src=\"http://www.itjon.com/phppt/pixel.php?a=https%3A%2F%2Fnewark.chalkbeat.org%2F2020%2F12%2F15%2F22176662%2Fnewark-virtual-tutoring-learning-loss\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Some districts are turning to tutoring to help students who have struggled during distance learning. Studies show intentional tutoring can help students make gains. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://newark.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/15/22176662/newark-virtual-tutoring-learning-loss\">\u003cem>Newark schools are ramping up virtual tutoring. Will it be enough to combat pandemic learning loss? \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters \u003ca href=\"https://go.pardot.com/l/342281/2018-05-30/g27h9\">here.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As evidence mounts that the pandemic is inflicting academic harm on many students, some Newark schools are turning to a simple yet potentially potent treatment: tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city school district plans to train students to tutor their peers, and it recently launched a “homework hotline” where teachers work one-on-one with students over video chat. Some Newark charter schools are also bringing in tutors, including corporate volunteers at one school and AmeriCorps members at another. All the tutoring is happening virtually while classrooms are closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as schools race to offer students extra help, experts caution that only rigorous and frequent tutoring is likely to help reverse the learning loss caused by the pandemic. The patchwork of programs in cities such as Newark points to the need for \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">federally funded and coordinated\u003c/a> tutoring that is widespread and intensive enough to steer students back on track, \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/slavin-an-open-letter-to-president-elect-biden-a-tutoring-marshall-plan-to-heal-our-students/\">researchers say\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t expect all these schools to just reinvent the wheel for tutoring with all the coordination, curriculum, training, costs, and expertise it requires,” said Matthew Kraft, a Brown University professor who co-authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai20-335.pdf\">a new report\u003c/a> calling for a national tutoring program. “We need to support them to do so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">Data is piling up\u003c/a> that shows this spring’s school closures knocked many students off course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Testing this fall revealed that \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/students-falling-behind/2020/12/06/88d7157a-3665-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html\">students started this school year behind\u003c/a>, with progress stalling \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/1/21754406/learning-loss-data-spring-nwea-schools-covid\">most in math\u003c/a>; and students of color lost more ground than white students, according to at least \u003ca href=\"https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-learning-loss-disparities-grow-and-students-need-help\">one analysis\u003c/a>. Meanwhile, several districts are reporting a surge in students \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/7/22160183/students-struggle-with-remote-learning-teachers-grapple-with-failing-grades\">failing their fall classes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey, \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/10/30/21541724/learning-loss-school-districts-tests\">like most states\u003c/a>, did not mandate widespread testing this fall to measure academic backsliding. But in anticipation of probable learning loss, the state recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/education/2020/12/are-your-kids-falling-behind-in-school-nj-thinks-they-might-be.html\">said it would give grants\u003c/a> to 16 districts to help students catch up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As schools consider how best to help students rebound, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w27476\">large body of evidence\u003c/a> suggests that small-group tutoring is one of the most effective ways to boost student learning. England recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/8/10/21362664/england-national-tutoring-program-us-americorps-congress\">launched a national tutoring program\u003c/a> to address learning loss, and some \u003ca href=\"https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-millions-for-remote-learning-20200629-rsv45ehtnbfwpp3aqkwf74llpa-story.html\">states\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-09/tutoring-deal-for-los-angeles-students\">districts\u003c/a> in the United States have funded smaller efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are few interventions in education where the evidence is as compelling and overwhelming as it is for the efficacy of tutoring,” said Kraft, who co-authored the paper with Grace Falken calling for a massive, federally funded \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\">expansion of tutoring\u003c/a> into every public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not all tutoring programs are equal. Kraft said the most effective programs keep student-to-tutor ratios low, schedule several sessions per week, and provide tutors with high-quality training and teaching materials. Tutoring usually works better during the school day because students are more likely to attend and take it seriously, said Kraft, who recommends lengthening the school day by 30 minutes to make time for tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Newark, the district is planning \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/nps.k12.nj.us/tutoring-site/home?authuser=0\">a suite of tutoring programs\u003c/a> this school year, according to documents and the district website. While still likely to benefit students, the programs might not feature all the hallmarks of effective tutoring, such as well-trained tutors and frequent sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through the district’s peer tutoring program, students in grades 3-11 will learn to coach their classmates. Teachers are responsible for choosing and training students to become tutors, according to district guidance. The guidance does not say how often tutoring will occur or what curriculum the student tutors will use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A district spokesperson would not answer questions or provide any information about the tutoring programs, and did not allow a school board member to be interviewed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort was supposed to be up and running by October, but has yet to roll out to all schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/nps.k12.nj.us/tutoring-site/homework-hotline-schedule?authuser=0\">homework hotline\u003c/a> connects students with teachers who are on call from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Students can choose a teacher who specializes in the subject they need help with, then join the teacher’s video chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the hotline workers is Wilmarie Morales, a bilingual teacher at Ridge Street School. Last Wednesday, she met virtually with a Spanish-speaking sixth-grader who recently arrived from Ecuador and needed help understanding his assignments. On Thursday, she assisted a second-grader who logs on almost every afternoon. They worked on science, math, and spelling assignments, and read a book about Santa Claus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some kids, you’re on with them an hour; other kids, you’re on with them 10 minutes,” Morales said. “The kids enjoy it, they like it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hotline, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/NewarkPublicSchools/posts/1985079014967156\">began Nov. 30\u003c/a>, offers individual support. But with only about 20 teachers, the program can only serve a fraction of the district’s more than 36,000 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual schools also offer virtual afterschool programs that include tutoring. However, school staffers say that getting students to voluntarily attend after a full day of remote learning can be difficult. Yolanda Johnson, a parent advocate whose daughter has attended University High School’s afterschool program, said tutoring should be required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s critical right now,” she said. “School districts should make it mandatory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond tutoring, the district also created math and phonics “bootcamps” this fall, where elementary school teachers gave a series of lessons reviewing essential skills in those subjects. And through a partnership with the Newark Public Library, district teachers will record lessons on different topics that students can watch online. After a delay, the service will launch in January, a library official said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22172442/GOLCS_tutoring.jpg\">Patrick Wall/Chalkbeat\u003cfigcaption>An AmeriCorps fellow worked with Great Oaks Legacy Charter School students in 2019. During remote learning, the fellows are now tutoring students remotely.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Newark charter schools are also ramping up academic support this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Philip’s Academy Charter School, volunteers from Prudential Financial tutor struggling students over Zoom each Tuesday through a program called \u003ca href=\"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-actuarial-foundations-math-motivators-program-cracks-the-code-on-free-virtual-tutoring-301163320.html\">Math Motivators\u003c/a>. Teachers also offer small-group tutoring sessions every Saturday. And during two “intervention” periods each week, teachers review topics with small groups of students who need extra help while the rest use online-learning programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Principal Yasmeen Sampson said testing this fall showed that about half of students were starting below grade level. That prompted the school to schedule the hour-long intervention periods during the school day so all students have access to tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want students to be excluded from getting what they need,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Great Oaks Legacy Charter School offers tutoring that closely resembles what some \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2020/08/10/489168/opportunity-counseling-corps-helping-k-12-students-young-adults-recover-coronavirus-crisis/\">think tanks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.coons.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CORPS%20Act%20one%20pager%5b1%5d.pdf\">lawmakers\u003c/a> have proposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through \u003ca href=\"https://greatoakslegacy.org/join-our-team/tutor-corps/\">an AmeriCorps fellowship\u003c/a> that predated the pandemic, recent college graduates tutor small groups of students during a designated period each day. The full-time tutors also work with struggling students after school and on Saturdays. The school trains the tutors and teachers meet with them regularly to track student progress and plan lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You really need systems and oversight,” said Dr. Prudence Minton, chief academic officer of the network’s middle school. “That’s been the biggest part of the program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
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