The Power of “How Are You?”: Teacher Check-ins in Remote Learning
Last week, Fairfax County in Virginia delayed the launch of remote learning due to technical challenges. Earlier in the month, Los Angeles Unified School District reported that about one third of their over 600,000 students were not logging into their online learning platforms regularly, and that about 15,000 had been completely absent since online learning […]
Lessons from Florida’s Fast Action on Remote Learning
On March 13, Florida schools announced an extended spring break, which would be followed by a statewide shutdown extending into April—and now, through the end of the school year. The initial closure order came on a Friday. The following Monday, the state’s largest school district, and the fifth largest in the nation, went live with […]
Three Ways States Can Tap ESSA to Better Navigate the COVID-19 Crisis
The novel coronavirus has shaken the very foundation of the U.S. public education system and upended assumptions about what “schooling” means. With virtually every school in the U.S. affected, the public health crisis has created unprecedented challenges and thrust families into the position of reluctant homeschoolers. States have emerged as a battleground for some of […]
What Post-Katrina New Orleans Can Teach Schools About Addressing COVID Learning Losses
This year, the “summer” break for school children will be six months long. Some learning loss is likely, but it will vary, depending on kids’ opportunities to learn during the coronavirus shutdown and on individual differences—for example, a taste for recreational reading. How can schools figure out where individual kids are? If the kids in […]
Dear States: Don’t Leave Remote Learning to Chance
Initial findings from the first month of CRPE’s in-depth reviews of district and charter school organizations’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis has revealed major gaps in learning opportunities available to students. States play critical roles in ensuring schools address this challenge. Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research in partnership with the […]
“We Should Have Been Working This Way All Along”: School District Central Offices Embrace Change in Crisis Response
The uneven and, in some cases, slow-moving efforts to support student learning during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised new questions about whether school districts are prepared to respond to a fast-moving crisis. We should all wonder how organizations that can sometimes take months to award contracts or hire senior staff are now coordinating, directing, and […]
Districts and CMOs Are Making Progress on Instruction and Monitoring, But Lag in Grading and Attendance
Nearly a month has passed since the majority of districts across the country closed. This week we continue to track progress toward remote learning. We also look at attendance tracking for the first time. This week we saw more districts providing universal access to instruction and feedback on student work and progress monitoring. Of the […]
How 18 Top Charter School Networks Are Adapting to Online Education, and What Other Schools Can Learn From Them
As public schools across the country build out remote learning plans to support students during school closures prompted by the novel coronavirus, some of the nation’s most prominent charter networks have made rapid leaps from the classroom to the cloud. Many of them are holding real-time online classes, checking in regularly with their students and […]
School Systems Make a Slow Transition From the Classroom to the Cloud
This is the first in a series of updates on our findings on school district response plans. See our latest analysis here. This week, some school systems across the country returned online after spring break. Others received clearer calls from state leaders to ensure student learning continues through the COVID-19 crisis. A growing number of […]
Every Minute Counts: Inside Success Academy’s Virtual Schools
New York City has been brought to a halt; only the sirens of ambulances pierce the fateful silence. But for Success Academy students, learning continues. One week after the network launched distance learning at all 45 schools enrolling 18,000 New York City students, I embedded in two days of classes. I clicked into my first class […]
