Addressing the Long-term Consequences of Unfinished Learning

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What actions can be taken to support students experiencing unfinished learning due to the pandemic?

Addressing the Long-term Consequences of Unfinished Learning
Photo: Oranat Taesuwan
Reading time 5 minutes
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Elementary and middle school students are behind in math and reading. What actions can be taken to help them recover?

As we wrote last week, the effects of the pandemic on unfinished learning and chronic absenteeism can affect an entire generation of students in the long term. A good education is linked to higher income and better health, lower incarceration rates, and better political participation. Mckinsey estimates that unfinished learning related to the ravages of COVID-19 could reduce lifetime earnings for K-12 students by an average of $49,000 to $61,000 USD. The economy is also in danger because less innovation and less economic productivity will decrease if education levels and incomes fall. By 2040, when most children today are in the workforce, the authors estimate a potential annual loss in the US GDP of about $128 billion to $188 billion USD.

To address unfinished learning and other educational issues caused by the pandemic, education leaders created the Council of Chief State School Officials (CCSSO). This coalition promotes student success by highlighting the priorities needed to achieve it with efficient and effective federal funds. Those priorities are summarized in four actions: reopen schools, re-engage students, support students in recovering unfinished learning, and reimagine education systems for the long term.

According to the experts, for these actions to be carried out successfully, it is crucial that the government is involved and that they understand the changing needs of parents and students as the pandemic progresses and ends, and that they commit to them to help students learn and thrive. Mckinsey surveyed more than 16,000 parents about these needs and their perspectives and what states and school districts can do to accommodate and meet them.

1. Safely reopen schools for in-person learning

Most school districts across the United States employ COVID-19 mitigation strategies such as vaccination drives for staff and students. In addition to providing coronavirus tests, mandatory masks, and updating its infrastructure to open its doors and offer classes in person every day.

An analysis from last year of whether or not it is safe to reopen schools with the correct protocols suggests that it is advisable to do so; however, parents interviewed remain concerned about school safety, and a third are extremely worried about the threat of coronavirus. COVID-19 for the health of your children. The districts had to invest in health and safety measures since returning to school in the fall.

2. Re-enroll students

Reopening institutions is a considerable challenge; however, even more, challenging may be encouraging students to return. Beyond the fact that some students abandoned their studies completely or are afraid of exposing themselves and getting infected, the survey suggests that 24% of parents are still not convinced to send their children to face-to-face classes; in the case of black communities, that rises to 34%.

On a positive note, only 4% of African American parents and 6% of African American parents said they definitely would not send their children to school. For these families who remain taking virtual classes, schools must continually look at how to improve their online learning models, seeking to correct mistakes they have made in the past.

For parents who are still undecided, the government must understand their needs and provide practical learning options for their children. The main concern is safety, but another reason is that, for some, distance learning has been a better learning environment for their children, even assuming that they have improved their children’s social, emotional, and mental health by learning from home. Still, for many, remote learning failed many others.

In addition to understanding the needs of parents, districts must reach out to families to learn about their concerns about the learning environment and address the reasons children are not returning to school. The government may need a wide range of tactics, from outreach and assistance campaigns to incentives for students to provide services that families need, such as transportation and childcare. In addition, more effort should be made to discover which students are at risk and need specific interventions.

For example, in partnership with the University of Chicago, they have developed a Student Prioritization Index (SPI) to identify students most at risk of learning incompleteness. The index is based on a combination of academic, assistance, socio-emotional, and community vulnerability inputs. The district will reach out to the most vulnerable students with additional support as schools partner with community organizations to conduct home visits. At the end of the school year, the government monitors and tracks result to see what tactics work and improve.

3. Support students in retrieving unfinished learning and broader needs

Even if students return and have effective learning environments, many will be behind academically, making it difficult to return to traditional learning. The government must create strategies to support them as students strive to recover from unfinished learning deal with mental health issues and social reintegration. However, no matter how many plans and solutions the districts present, it is useless if the parents do not attend the support programs or the talks, so it is vital that they also do their part.

According to the Mckinsey survey, parents underestimate the unfinished learning caused by the pandemic. 40% said their child is on track, and 16% said their child is making faster progress than in the traditional setting. Only 14% believe that their child is significantly delayed. Even if the programs are free, many parents may not take advantage of them because they don’t see the need. Only about a quarter said they are very likely to enroll their children in tutoring programs, after school or summer school, for example. Nearly 40% responded that they are more likely to enroll their children in enrichment programs like art or music. Hence, districts and schools need to consider the importance of offering effective programs and making them engaging.

In Rhode Island, for example, schools, during their summer classes, combine math and reading lessons with fun activities provided by community partnerships. Enrichment activities such as Italian cooking, sports, or sailing successfully persuade students to participate. For them, bringing the community together with associations and schools creates a dual focus on academics, creating a strong fo
cus on relationships and social-emotional support.

4. Reimagine the education system for the long-term

Opportunity gaps have always existed; however, as schools recover from the pandemic, districts must commit to providing an excellent education for all. A possible starting point for CCSSO is to redouble efforts to provide a high-quality, engaging curriculum with diverse and effective educators in every classroom, supported by assessments to inform how they are doing and how to improve.

Additionally, school districts should consider reinventing other aspects of the system. Parents must also be open to non-traditional models. About 33% of respondents said that even when the pandemic is over, the ideal for their child would be something more than five days a week in a traditional school. More and more families are considering hybrid models, remote learning, homeschooling, or long-term learning centers. Although schools are fully reopened, new technologies are needed to support teaching.

For example, Edgecombe County Public Schools in North Carolina uses learning centers to serve the needs of students. For elementary and middle school students, they offer enrichment activities that include interest-based science and social studies projects. For high school students, activities include exposing their passions and interests through specific language arts and social studies projects or gaining work experience, either paid or volunteer. The government takes advantage of community associations to carry out these activities.

On the other hand, Dallas, Texas, is rethinking the traditional school year, gathering input from families, educators, and school staff to ensure communities are prepared for the challenges that may lie ahead. More than 40 schools have chosen to add five weeks of intersession to the school year to provide targeted academic and enrichment activities.

It’s impossible to know if these experiments will succeed, though, and school districts must closely monitor each state to ensure they thrive and improve on any failures. However, the pandemic has shown that some innovations born out of necessity better met the needs of some families. Continued experimentation and fine-tuning could bring together the best of traditional and new approaches.

Because the challenges have been entrenched in the school system since before the pandemic and have resisted many efforts to reform, districts and schools can still ensure the implementation of evidence-based initiatives while piloting and monitoring innovative new approaches. Although it is too early to assess the effectiveness of pre-pandemic solutions to unfinished learning fully, it is necessary to reopen schools, recover unfinished learning, and reinvent education systems for the long term. For Mckinsey, the best option is to take a holistic approach based on students’ and their parents’ opinions and concerns to design programs that meet academic and non-academic needs.

Paulette Delgado

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0