Discussion 7 706

E D U C AT I O N T R E N D S

What Educators Are Learning During the Pandemic Many school leaders and teachers are focusing on whole child education, an idea that seems likely to grow in prominence in the future.

By Becki Cohn-Vargas

December 9, 2020

Dave Zajac/Record-Journal via Associated Press

In 2020, educators have faced pandemic-driven remote schooling and also widespread inequities in education and

society that have been made obvious by the virus. As schools were forced to switch to distance learning overnight,

huge disparities became undeniable: We witnessed children, especially children of color, facing poverty, hunger,

mental health issues, lack of computers and internet access, and consequent fears of falling behind. The pandemic

led educators to confront these inequities and redouble their ongoing efforts to meet not only the academic but also

the physical and social-emotional needs of students.

What we have learned enables us to imagine a more equitable education. I have recently been speaking with

educators and students in California, and I’ve learned of many innovative practices that can continue when all

students and teachers are back in their classrooms full-time. I will focus on the power of relationships, innovative

curriculum, and wraparound services. While the idea of whole-child education

G E O R G E L U C A S E D U C AT I O N A L F O U N D AT I O N

Celebrating 30 years

isn’t new, more educators now recognize the

necessity to embrace it.

S T R O N G R E L AT I O N S H I P S A R E T H E H E A R T O F L E A R N I N G

With distance and hybrid learning, educators work harder to forge relationships with and among students. Many

have found innovative ways to build trust and create identity safety , where each

student feels welcomed, accepted, and valued. These efforts are happening all over the country; below are a few

examples I’ve learned of in my work.

One teacher told me, “I typically start my Zoom sessions 10 minutes prior to the start of class. When students enter,

I engage in casual conversations, asking about their weekend, what’s ahead in the week, and how they’re doing.”

A district superintendent reported that over half their teachers were providing individualized tutoring, and many

schools have enlisted retired teachers and other volunteers to assist in similar efforts. For example, a volunteer in

Berkeley, California, supports a kindergarten teacher five days a week by offering one-to-one and small group

tutoring, an invaluable contribution to students’ confidence and sense of belonging.

Educators have also strengthened collegial relationships with peers. A Berkeley teacher invited fellow second-grade

teachers to a monthly Zoom to share best practices in distance learning as well as what was and wasn’t working

with virtual teaching. And a similar weekly support group for new administrators became a lifeline for them.

Students have stepped up too. High school students Nelson Mu and Andrew Lu

formed Yapa Kids

, a network of older students who teach free classes in math, science, Mandarin, Spanish, and

the arts to younger ones. Their website mushroomed, with 500 teens teaching 3,500 children nationwide.

B L E N D E D, P E R S O N A L I Z E D, A N D P R O J E C T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G

Many educators are improving students’ skills in research, video production, and website design. Using Facetime, a

9-year-old English learner who aspires to be a marine biologist interviewed a shark researcher in Australia, an

oceanographer in New York, and a marine biologist in Washington DC. A middle schooler who was assigned a

project to demonstrate the cultural influences that helped to shape him—languages, holidays, beliefs, and values—

interviewed an older relative and created a website about the impact of his Jewish background, deepening his

understanding of his own culture.

A drama teacher told my team, “Creating digital media such as songs, poems, and podcasts is something I plan to

continue when we return to in-person instruction. Utilizing platforms such as Soundtrap has

helped me create virtual connections and allowed for creative expression. Partnering with national nonprofits like

Little Kids Rock has shown me that music as a means for storytelling and building

community can engage students in fun and inspiring ways.”

In a partnership with the musical instrument company Fender, LAUSD distributed about 1,000 guitars, ukuleles, and

basses to middle

(https://www.pta.org/docs/default-source/fi les/cfe/2019/what-is-whole-child-education.pdf)

(http://www.identitysafeclassrooms.com/)

(https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/teens-volunteer-to-teach-young-students-during-pandemic/2286494/)

(https://www.yapakids.org/)

(https://www.soundtrap.com/)

(https://www.litt lekidsrock.org/)

(https://www.dailynews.com/2020/07/22/fender-play-foundation-partners-with-lausd-for-tuneful-summer-class-for-students/)

Education Trends Community Partnerships Online Learning

school students for online lessons, and when it is safe to do so, these musicians will perform together at the

Hollywood Bowl.

W R A PA R O U N D S E R V I C E S A N D A F O C U S O N W E L L- B E I N G

The pandemic forced school leaders and teachers to reach out to their communities in ways they had never done

before. Many families did not have computers or internet access, and some parents required a translator to learn

how to access Zoom and Google Classroom, so school districts created multilingual courses to help parents learn

the technology and strategies to support their children at home. The AFT provided a resource for parents of children

with ADHD for developing a schedule for learning at home.

In the full-service community model, schools partner with local organizations to offer an array of services. When the

pandemic struck, full-service community schools moved into action quickly. The Oakland USD Community School

Department, for example, identified urgent family needs, provided food, made referrals for housing and health care,

and monitored attendance. In Brockton, Massachusetts, a community hit hard by Covid-19, a team of multilingual

volunteers are staffing a call center to support families, connecting parents and caregivers to counseling, nurses,

and an array of services. Many other districts are following suit.

Going forward, educators can aspire to a new paradigm: Using what we’ve learned during the pandemic about the

power of relationships, innovative instructional models, and community partnerships, our schools can become more

equitable for all students.

I’d like to thank Dr. Susan Charles and Donald Cox for their help with this article.

SHARE THIS STORY

FILED UNDER

E D U C AT I O N T R E N D S

Has the Pandemic Ushered in New Norms in Education?

Less reliance on high-stakes testing and more emphasis on student choice could be here to stay. By Heather Wolpert-Gawron

December 24, 2020

(https://sharemylesson.com/blog/daily-schedule-adhd-school-closure)

LEADERSHIP POLICY & POLITICS TEACHING & LEARNING TECHNOLOGY OPINION JOBS MARKET BRIEF

EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT COMMENTARY

Education Reform as We Know It Is Over. What Have We Learned? By Van Schoales — April 26, 2019 4 min read

— James Steinberg for Education Week

OPINION

Van Schoales

Contributor

Van Schoales is the President of A+ Colorado, a nonprofit organization committed to ensuring every Colorado student can access an excellent education. He has led efforts to improve public education as a teacher, principal, researcher, and advocate for 30 years.

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The education reform movement as we have known it is over. Top-down federal and state reforms along with big-city reforms have stalled. The political winds for education change have shifted dramatically. Something has ended, and we must learn the lessons of what the movement got right—and wrong.

The era of inspiration, edicts, and coercion from Washington to improve our public schools is in the past. The Every Student Succeeds Act is a paper tiger with no new funds or accountability for results. The U.S. Department of Education under Betsy DeVos has dismantled efforts to push states to improve school systems while tainting all education reform with a far-right agenda for vouchers as it defunds public education. Yet, a growing number of high school graduates are not prepared to work or to continue their education.

The era of the nontraditional “no excuses” urban superintendents is finished. Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Tom Boasberg have all moved on. There are few comparable replacements. The vision of a radically transformed public education system with virtual schools, new charter models, and online personalization has crashed on the shores of reality. Certainly, there are examples where district leaders and school boards are trying new practices and pushing for improvement—whether in Indianapolis, where innovation schools continue to be seen as important and effective, or San Antonio, where the district is partnering with charter school management organizations to create new schools— but the national wave has crested.

We have a set of proof points of what is possible with a few improved school districts and hundreds of schools that effectively educate the most disadvantaged children. Denver, New Orleans, and the District of Columbia all saw improvements in standardized test scores over the past decade, for instance. However, education improvement remains unavailable for many communities that require it the most. This is the fundamental paradox we are left with at the end of this ed. reform era: How do we reconcile tangible progress with the massive systemic gaps that remain?

We had more changes in federal and state education policy designed to improve achievement since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 than since the civil rights era. We had a broad bipartisan political coalition with Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush. Barack Obama and Arne Duncan poured unprecedented billions into pushing the system. We focused on 21st-century outcomes, not fuzzy 20th-century inputs. We thought we could change it. We were right, and we were wrong.

There are three primary reasons that education reforms failed to live up to our expectations: too few teacher-led reforms, a lack of real community support from those most impacted, and a lack of focus on policy change for public schools across the board, not just the lowest of low-performing schools.

Too many reform efforts were undertaken on behalf of communities, rather than led by communities.

Reformers (myself included) led an unneeded assault on the existing educator force, with ham-handed teacher evaluations and a focus on getting rid of poor performing teachers. In an attempt to modernize the profession, we ended up losing the hearts and minds of a generation of educators. It is hard to not notice the wave of teacher strikes aimed exclusively on securing more resources for existing systems.

We thought we could change it. We were right, and we were wrong."

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Lastly, while the rhetoric was appropriately focused on education being the “civil rights issue of our time,” many of the reforms at the state level applied to indiscriminately all schools—regardless of whether these new accountability systems, tests, charters, or teacher evaluation systems made sense for all schools. Efforts to bring urban reforms to whole states without asking whether suburban or rural area schools even needed them backfired dramatically. Reformers often took a holier than thou approach in challenging all schools to change, which only alienated those that saw little need for change in their schools.

Too many of the reforms were focused on scaling success too early rather than doubling down on quality and understanding what was working and why. Building effective, quality programs or schools was not considered sexy. Instead, it was all about scale, measured not in the dozens but the millions. Even if it did lead to the development of many new schools that have worked for many students, it was all too much, too fast.

So what’s next, how do we move forward? First, champions of education reform have to honestly assess why particular efforts failed to live up to our expectations before we move on to the next shiny education improvement initiative. We need to do this before we spend tens of millions on more scaling of existing reforms. We need to focus now on listening.

Where did we make progress, where did the needle get stuck? Why have some states or cities failed to live up to the grand expectations? And why did achievement on standardized tests improve in Denver, New Orleans, and the District of Columbia in the past decade? We need to be able to answer these questions, and we need to be able to do that before we embark on the next chapter.

But whatever we do, we need to work directly with those closest to the problems—teachers, principals, students, families, and community leaders—to build a movement that is focused on preparing most or all of our students for the world that they live in, that promotes lasting change. It will not be simple and will take a commitment of many years and require leadership in the communities most affected. Let’s get to work.

Related Tags: Education Reform District Leadership

Follow the Education Week Commentary section on Twitter.

Sign up to get the latest Education Week Commentaries in your email inbox. A version of this article appeared in the May 01, 2019 edition of Education Week as The End of Education Reform

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E D U C AT I O N T R E N D S

What Educators Are Learning During the Pandemic Many school leaders and teachers are focusing on whole child education, an idea that seems likely to grow in prominence in the future.

By Becki Cohn-Vargas

December 9, 2020

Dave Zajac/Record-Journal via Associated Press

In 2020, educators have faced pandemic-driven remote schooling and also widespread inequities in education and

society that have been made obvious by the virus. As schools were forced to switch to distance learning overnight,

huge disparities became undeniable: We witnessed children, especially children of color, facing poverty, hunger,

mental health issues, lack of computers and internet access, and consequent fears of falling behind. The pandemic

led educators to confront these inequities and redouble their ongoing efforts to meet not only the academic but also

the physical and social-emotional needs of students.

What we have learned enables us to imagine a more equitable education. I have recently been speaking with

educators and students in California, and I’ve learned of many innovative practices that can continue when all

students and teachers are back in their classrooms full-time. I will focus on the power of relationships, innovative

curriculum, and wraparound services. While the idea of whole-child education

G E O R G E L U C A S E D U C AT I O N A L F O U N D AT I O N

Celebrating 30 years

isn’t new, more educators now recognize the

necessity to embrace it.

S T R O N G R E L AT I O N S H I P S A R E T H E H E A R T O F L E A R N I N G

With distance and hybrid learning, educators work harder to forge relationships with and among students. Many

have found innovative ways to build trust and create identity safety , where each

student feels welcomed, accepted, and valued. These efforts are happening all over the country; below are a few

examples I’ve learned of in my work.

One teacher told me, “I typically start my Zoom sessions 10 minutes prior to the start of class. When students enter,

I engage in casual conversations, asking about their weekend, what’s ahead in the week, and how they’re doing.”

A district superintendent reported that over half their teachers were providing individualized tutoring, and many

schools have enlisted retired teachers and other volunteers to assist in similar efforts. For example, a volunteer in

Berkeley, California, supports a kindergarten teacher five days a week by offering one-to-one and small group

tutoring, an invaluable contribution to students’ confidence and sense of belonging.

Educators have also strengthened collegial relationships with peers. A Berkeley teacher invited fellow second-grade

teachers to a monthly Zoom to share best practices in distance learning as well as what was and wasn’t working

with virtual teaching. And a similar weekly support group for new administrators became a lifeline for them.

Students have stepped up too. High school students Nelson Mu and Andrew Lu

formed Yapa Kids

, a network of older students who teach free classes in math, science, Mandarin, Spanish, and

the arts to younger ones. Their website mushroomed, with 500 teens teaching 3,500 children nationwide.

B L E N D E D, P E R S O N A L I Z E D, A N D P R O J E C T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G

Many educators are improving students’ skills in research, video production, and website design. Using Facetime, a

9-year-old English learner who aspires to be a marine biologist interviewed a shark researcher in Australia, an

oceanographer in New York, and a marine biologist in Washington DC. A middle schooler who was assigned a

project to demonstrate the cultural influences that helped to shape him—languages, holidays, beliefs, and values—

interviewed an older relative and created a website about the impact of his Jewish background, deepening his

understanding of his own culture.

A drama teacher told my team, “Creating digital media such as songs, poems, and podcasts is something I plan to

continue when we return to in-person instruction. Utilizing platforms such as Soundtrap has

helped me create virtual connections and allowed for creative expression. Partnering with national nonprofits like

Little Kids Rock has shown me that music as a means for storytelling and building

community can engage students in fun and inspiring ways.”

In a partnership with the musical instrument company Fender, LAUSD distributed about 1,000 guitars, ukuleles, and

basses to middle

(https://www.pta.org/docs/default-source/fi les/cfe/2019/what-is-whole-child-education.pdf)

(http://www.identitysafeclassrooms.com/)

(https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/teens-volunteer-to-teach-young-students-during-pandemic/2286494/)

(https://www.yapakids.org/)

(https://www.soundtrap.com/)

(https://www.litt lekidsrock.org/)

(https://www.dailynews.com/2020/07/22/fender-play-foundation-partners-with-lausd-for-tuneful-summer-class-for-students/)

Education Trends Community Partnerships Online Learning

school students for online lessons, and when it is safe to do so, these musicians will perform together at the

Hollywood Bowl.

W R A PA R O U N D S E R V I C E S A N D A F O C U S O N W E L L- B E I N G

The pandemic forced school leaders and teachers to reach out to their communities in ways they had never done

before. Many families did not have computers or internet access, and some parents required a translator to learn

how to access Zoom and Google Classroom, so school districts created multilingual courses to help parents learn

the technology and strategies to support their children at home. The AFT provided a resource for parents of children

with ADHD for developing a schedule for learning at home.

In the full-service community model, schools partner with local organizations to offer an array of services. When the

pandemic struck, full-service community schools moved into action quickly. The Oakland USD Community School

Department, for example, identified urgent family needs, provided food, made referrals for housing and health care,

and monitored attendance. In Brockton, Massachusetts, a community hit hard by Covid-19, a team of multilingual

volunteers are staffing a call center to support families, connecting parents and caregivers to counseling, nurses,

and an array of services. Many other districts are following suit.

Going forward, educators can aspire to a new paradigm: Using what we’ve learned during the pandemic about the

power of relationships, innovative instructional models, and community partnerships, our schools can become more

equitable for all students.

I’d like to thank Dr. Susan Charles and Donald Cox for their help with this article.

SHARE THIS STORY

FILED UNDER

E D U C AT I O N T R E N D S

Has the Pandemic Ushered in New Norms in Education?

Less reliance on high-stakes testing and more emphasis on student choice could be here to stay. By Heather Wolpert-Gawron

December 24, 2020

(https://sharemylesson.com/blog/daily-schedule-adhd-school-closure)