Unite with us in our interactive digital mosaic. Co-create this image that honors our courageous youth. For a donation of $10 or more, upload your photo and message to hit “re-set” — to memorialize your best intentions during this time of solidarity.
We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat. Getting back to “normal” won’t work for our youth. We need to create a “new-normal.” As we assess what it cost us to hit “pause” for these past months, we need to now hit “re-set” for the sake of our youth, to focus on finding the strength to live up to our ideals. Real change will come as we redefine what it mans to be courageous.
What is possible? We are already seeing empathy opening up and expanding. Just as we are frantically working on creating a vaccine, we need to work at creating a cure for inequality. Part of the solution is strengthening and expanding the reach of Carver’s culture and programming that recognizes our students’ individuality, diversity of talents, and boundless possibilities.
But many of our students arriving in sixth grade, for example, a critical point in preparation for real math and science learning, won’t have the content or skills they need for grade-level courses. When many of our students return to school, their families will still face housing and food security challenges. They’ll need to cope with deep and lasting trauma at a time when services will be strained.
For some students, half a year of lost schooling might not ever be recovered. This can affect their odds of graduating from high school and, thus, their lifetime incomes.
To comply with health guidelines, educators will almost certainly be forced to limit the number of students in classrooms. Many older teachers will fall into health-risk categories that may prevent them from being in physical classrooms at all. Schools may have to close again if regional infections spike.
The economic slowdown means bare-bones school budgets. The recent federal stimulus bill will provide about $270 per pupil, not nearly enough to make up for state and local funding shortfalls.
Flattening the learning loss curve is possible. We are working with our schools to find effective strategies to ensure that students have the essential content and skills to enter the next grade with minimal remediation. We are bolstering supports virtually now around core competencies — the skills and content our students need to progress to the next grade.
We will be searching for effective ways to as much as possible help our youth catch up over the summer. We hope that federal stimulus funds go toward remediation coursework — assistance our schools could not provide this spring and must make up for.
Schools will need to prepare for academic triage and diagnostic testing, and we need to start planning for the next forced school closure. It will come.
American families have more reason than ever to believe that education is critical to their future prosperity. But necessity must breed invention.
The choices we make now matter.
Your support matters.
At some point, the coronavirus will pass. There will be (and already is) staggering suffering and loss of life, enormous economic devastation. That tragedy cannot be overstated. For years, we will be trying to rebuild our broken world. But perhaps a more deliberate way of addressing inequality can become permanent.