Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

Over the past several days i’ve read countless articles on the impact of internet access inequities on student learning during the time interval when schools are closed. One of the best articles is an interview with MIT’s Justin Reich by Sarah Kleiner of the Center for Public Integrity titled “Yawning Gaps in Learning Expected During Pandemic“.  The reason for these gaps is explained in the Mr. Reich’s response to Ms. Kleiner’s first question, which was whether schools were prepared for this shift:

Schools use all kinds of technology to varying degrees, but the technologies to support in-class learning only partially overlap with the technologies needed to support distance learning. But certainly our schools, especially urban and rural schools, are dreadfully underfunded, and that insufficient investment will be increasingly revealed in the weeks ahead. Schools were not only unready in the sense of not having enough technology, but unready in the sense of having been woefully underfunded at least since the growth of 1970s era anti-government, austerity policies.

The greatest gap will be in K-12 education, where parents play a key role in educating the child even if the child’s education is on-line. Ms. Reich notes that the parents who will suffer most are those who will be laid off from work who will be under severe stress and looking desperately for some means to provide food, clothing ad shelter for their children. Those parents will be hard pressed to serve as the “coach and teacher” an online learner requires at home, for that is an essential element for success:

Most K-12 virtual schools are what we might call “coached homeschooling.” They depend upon a full-time parent as a coach and teacher. There is no viable model for elementary schools to provide remote instruction without every child having a parent, sibling or other guardian to instruct, assess and coach them.

In most cases, affluent parents have the wherewithal to provide that kind of support and to have the online tools available in their houses. Children of hourly employees are not so fortunate.

Reich… points out that internet access is a scarce commodity for many Americans. Just 56 percent of adults in households earning below $30,000 have broadband internet at home, and about 17 percent of adults access the internet at home through a smartphone only.

And so… as always seems to be the case, the rich get richer and the poor fall further behind. MAYBE the widening technology disparity will become clearer and get the attention it deserves.