Creative school plans could counter inequities exposed by COVID-19
The emergency pivot to remote learning for K–12 students last spring illuminated longstanding educational fault lines in the United States. The most vulnerable students — children with disabilities, English language learners and children from marginalized Black, Hispanic and Native American communities — were less likely than their affluent and mostly white peers to have basic necessities such as regular meals, a quiet place to work, computer access, guidance on how to get online and even online access itself. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, education researchers were sounding the alarm that the country’s achievement gap between students from low- and high-income households had remained unchanged for almost half a century, with the poorest students performing at academic levels three to four years below that of the wealthiest students (SN: 3/19/19). Spring’s events may have pushed disadvantaged students even further behind. In a May working paper, researchers at Brown University in Providence, R.I., used...