The Bleak World of Post-Coronavirus Schools
By Edwin Benson
The segment
of society that was least prepared for the Coronavirus crisis was education.
The whole education model – public, parochial, and
private – involves bringing together children from many families into a single
room. Everything from circle rugs in preschools to the large university classes
in lecture halls shares this common characteristic.
Almost every
school in the nation suspended classes around March 15. Administrators
scrambled to patch together something to finish the year. Teachers, parents,
and students struggled to make those plans work.
Now, they will have to figure out a plan for the next
school year. Should there be a “second wave” of the coronavirus, it could
prevent the school from starting. It could also interrupt the year in October,
November, or whenever.
Paul Reville, of the
Harvard School of Education and former Massachusetts secretary of education,
laid out the task ahead. “Next fall should mark the beginning of the end of the
“one size fits all” approach to schooling—whether schooling is conducted in
person or remotely. To get students back on track, educators will need to meet
them where they are and give them what they need, customizing an education
strategy for each child designed … to determine the particular academic and
social-emotional needs of each student.”
However,
some fundamental (and extremely difficult) problems will have to be solved
first.
Physical Arrangement
Even before
the Coronavirus, the size of most classrooms was substandard. The University of Georgia’s School
of Design and Planning concluded that the optimal size for a
junior or senior high school classroom with twenty students is 1,344 square
feet. Very few classrooms have that much space and contain far more than twenty
students. Insider showed
that the average high school class size was somewhere between 22 and 27
students per class. Seating a class to accommodate 25 students six feet apart
would require massive classrooms. In addition, cafeterias, libraries,
restrooms, gymnasiums, and auditoriums would need to be enlarged. That
additional space needs to be heated, cooled, lighted, and cleaned. Every chair,
desk, counter, locker and commonly used furniture will need to be wiped daily
to meet new health protocols. Some schools hope to relieve the pressure by
having half of the students come one day and the other half on the next.
Some may try having half of the students come in the morning and the
other half during the afternoon. Large classes could be taught in the
auditoriums or other classes held outside.
Grading
Grades were initially designed to express each student’s
command of the material. They soon became seen as a punishment for those who
had not done well. Educationists have been trying to get rid of them for
decades, but public opinion has not allowed that to happen.
The coronavirus has obliterated this
assessment. Many schools decreed that any work will be automatically deemed
satisfactory. Other systems have decided that such work – even if it is poorly
done or not done – will not lower the grade that the student had before the
suspension of classes. The San Francisco schools decided
to give all students A’s for all classes this year before they dropped the plan
due to community reaction.
In a distance learning environment, helping students that
have difficulty is complicated. A skilled teacher can look at students as
they work and see which ones are having difficulty. Often, a timely
intervention can get those students “back on track.” Under distance learning,
the teacher does not see the work until it has been completed. Showing students
their errors and persuading them to fix them is difficult. It is much easier to
“give them the benefit of the doubt” and post grades higher than those earned
by the students.
Community Expectations
Society continues to pay for a broken education system
because it provides many non-educational benefits to the community.
One basic
expectation is that the students are housed, supervised, and kept busy for
six-to-eight hours a day, five days a week. Two-income households must have
some place to keep their children safe and out of trouble. Installing a system
in which students attend every other day will not suffice. Many unsupervised
students are a menace to themselves and their communities.
Most communities also expect schools to provide a wide
range of sports and extracurricular activities, which are now suspended. These
activities may not be feasible if the current “social distancing” guidelines
are extended.
Money
No school has unlimited financial resources. Constructing
larger buildings would be expensive. If existing classrooms are used, class
size will have to be cut so that schools will need more classrooms. That means
hiring extra teachers. In most schools, teacher salaries are already the
biggest single expense, especially when pensions and fringe benefits are
counted.
Social
distancing will also impact the cost of busing. According to Education Week,
“[Kathy] Granger [superintendent of the Mountain Empire Unified School District
in southeastern San Diego County] already spends $1.5 million a year—7 percent
of her annual budget—to bus 3,200 students to eight schools. But to make sure
kids can be spaced out enough on buses this fall—meaning no more than 20 per
bus—Granger figures she needs to quadruple the district’s 14 bus routes a day
to 56. Sticker price: $4.5 million.”
Distance education may be part of the
long-term answer, but it also carries high costs. The National Center for Education
Statistics estimates that 56,678,000 students will be enrolled
in America’s K-12 schools this fall. Each student needs the digital
infrastructure to participate in such learning. School systems will need to
hire people to maintain and update devices. There will also be massive costs
involved to ensure that students in rural areas can be connected to the system
for several hours a day. Michael Griffith, a
senior school finance researcher and policy analyst for the Learning Policy
Institute, estimates that “15 percent of children between 3 and 18 don’t have
home access to the internet.”
The only source of money for public schools is taxation.
The coronavirus shutdown has affected taxation at all levels. California alone
expects to cut more than $19 billion from its education spending.
The Outlook
These considerations would be monumental if the
administrators had years to plan, implement, and test solutions. They do not
have that time. Even though most schools have been suspended for the rest of
the school year, the students will be back in just a few short months. They
need a plan for the here and now.
The first step should be to evaluate the dangers
involved. What makes the whole scenario perplexing is the fact that students at
all levels are the least affected by the coronavirus. All these measures are
mandated to protect a population segment that experiences almost no deaths from
the virus.
Would it not be wiser to address the problem by
considering the reality of the facts? Schools are reopening in other places
without massive changes. Schools should take commonsense sanitary precautions
that match the minimal risks involved for young people. There is no need to
turn schools into sterile hospital wards.
Solving problems based on truth and facts is what
education is supposed to be about.
