California: Students Show Learning Lags During Pandemic

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By Grecia Ortíz
[email protected]

Measures to stop the advance of Covid-19 infections in the United States and the world, led schools to close and children to distance learning and now the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), remarks in a study how in several districts of California, a significant loss of learning of the English language and in mathematics is observed.

According to PPIC, made up of a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, low-income African American students and English learners lag further behind.

In particular, they mention that concerns have grown about how the pandemic has affected high-need and underserved students, including children with disabilities, in foster care and low-income families.

In this way, distance learning has further revealed how uneven educational resources are distributed, from Internet access and devices, to teacher instruction and parental involvement, a situation that can expand the old divisions. California’s racial and socioeconomic status.

DEVICES AND INTERNET IN THE HOME

In a survey of California school districts, the PPIC conducted an analysis that explored how districts serve the most needy and underserved populations.

Among the findings, they mention that the digital divide persists and that a third of low-income students still do not have a reliable Internet at home.

The vast majority of districts reported that technology was a priority and spent more on devices and Internet at home, according to the PPIC.

At the same time, they highlight that, as a result, the proportion of adequate access to devices increased from 67 to 82 percent from spring to fall 2020.

On the other hand, face-to-face instruction is not evenly distributed, and high-poverty districts and those with a high proportion of black and Latino students were less likely to be physically open in the first semester of 2020-21.

Districts with lower test scores before the pandemic were less likely to offer in-person instruction, they noted.

At the same time, experts note that most districts reported improvements in distance learning since spring 2020.

SCHOOLS NEED TO SUPPORT STUDENTS

However, unlike in the spring, 76 percent of districts require that at least half of remote instruction be conducted live, “most provide 3-6 hours of instruction per day, an improvement over spring”.

“Learning loss strategies vary by type of district. Seventy-three percent of districts with a high Black / Latino population provided supplemental curriculum and instructional materials. 61 percent of high-poverty districts provided programs to address mental health and enhance social-emotional learning; and 50 percent of districts with high black / Latino populations offered tutoring programs”, They noted.

To repair the full impact of the pandemic on student learning, the organization mentions that schools need to support students during the pandemic and beyond to address the ongoing impact of COVID-19 disruptions.

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