Nat Malkkus of the American Enterprise Institute has a new brief called “Too Little, Too Late: A Hard Look at Spring 2020 Remote Learning.” His team tracked school districts’ programming from March-May to measure how much instructional time students lost in the spring, how long it took schools to get students access to remote learning platforms, and the quality of those learning platforms.
The results won’t surprise anyone: The total instructional time lost during the spring was much greater in high-poverty schools and those losses were magnified by canceled instructional days and lack of student participation. Three national surveys of teachers by the Education Week Research Center found that between 21 and 25 percent of students were “essentially truant” for remote instruction throughout the spring.
Here’s the full report and here’s the executive summary. Below are the highlights.
- On average, the poorest districts lost four full weeks of instruction, which is equivalent to 12 percent of a school year and 41 percent of the period between closures and the last day of school. Estimated lost instructional time due to student nonparticipation in remote learning after closures was greater than canceled instructional days.
- The quality of remote-instruction programs was lower in schools with higher student poverty and lower student achievement, as measured by multiple indicators.
- Schools had comparatively lower-quality remote-instruction offerings when in districts that had less educated adult populations, higher rates of single-parent households, and less broadband access.
- School districts in red states provided lower-quality instructional offerings compared to districts in blue and purple states.
