Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, wrote an article in the WSJ: Covid-19’s Painful – and essential – Lessons for America’s Schools*. She claims the pandemic highlighted problems that have long existed and now is the time to fix them.
It is vital that Americans come together at the local, state and national levels to reform and rebuild the education system, to address the lessons of Covid-19 and to set a stronger foundation for the future.
So, what are the lessons for Education from the Pandemic? Margaret Spelling has some suggestions that I find puzzling. She draws conclusions that are confusing and misguided. Her strongest opening volley is that we must deliver broadband to every American student. This, even after arguing that in-person learning is hard to duplicate with virtual learning. So, even though using broadband to deliver education hasn’t proven very effective, still we’ll take this opportunity to push for ubiquitous broadband. I’m not arguing against universal broadband, I’m just saying it’s not so much a lesson from Pandemic schooling. And I’m not sure that the Department of Education should take on this job, maybe the Department of Human Services or Labor or something else.
She then notes “There is no question that more innovation has occurred in education in the past few months than perhaps in the entire preceding decade.” But the examples she gives have a positive slant to them that just doesn’t jive with what I’ve seen happening in my part of the world.
Her claim that small group learning pods have taken hold and seen success puzzles me.
In my neighborhood many families teamed up to help support and teach small groups of their children (learning pods) but I hardly think Spelling is envisioning neighborhood parents assembling and teaching their children as part of the traditional education regimen. When I was teaching years ago, small group learning played a huge role in education and saw lots of success, so I don’t really see her point that we’ve learned something new about small groups.
Next, she claims that Many students finally have the personalized pace and content they need to learn effectively. How can she say that after announcing how ineffective pandemic learning was? Where are the students who were so effectively moving at their pace and with content important to them? That may have happened with some homeschooling situations, but not so much in the virtual zoom meetings with the classroom teacher.
She identifies teachers as ‘best’ for having reached students through online platforms. “Best” teachers have found ways to reach thousands of students through online platforms. What I saw happen locally usually looked like the tech person at school establishing the online platforms and working hard helping many teachers figure it out. The teachers who managed to use it effectively were maybe the ones Spellings describes as “best” teachers.
She attempts to praise teacher training and support, claiming that the pandemic has proved the importance of training and support programs that turn good teachers into great ones.
The pandemic as showcased the need for certain kinds of training and support, like how to teach virtually and be supported in it, but that kind of training was not in place. Teachers were heroic, but that was a more personal response, not a response from professional development about how to switch learning from in-person to virtual. I would say more that many teachers proved they were great people, trying really hard, but they had not been prepared as teachers for what the pandemic presented.
Finally, she addresses the highly publicized threat circulating around the world that all students are “falling behind.” She creates a positive frame claiming the pandemic has proved the importance of tutoring and technology that catches students who fall behind. I really don’t know what she’s getting at here. Maybe she assumes all kids are falling behind who don’t get the tutoring they need and don’t have access to bandwidth because those are the only things that keep kids from falling behind? Or she is talking about testing, labeling, and pulling kids out of the classroom for extra support. I think whatever issues she is circling here are the part of education that needs restructured; they are areas that need reform. Testing has taken on power that is misguided. Labeling and pull-out programs have so many drawbacks that need to be addressed. I think these can be counterproductive and education should be restructured to change them. Falling behind is a misnomer…this argument assumes that all children should move ahead at the same pace in all areas, and again, I think this is one of the biggest problems with the education and that restructuring is needed to change this. I saw nothing new in COVID learning that caught children who were “falling behind.”
· (https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19s-painfuland-essentiallessons-for-americas-schools-11607961600)
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