Wokandapix / Pixabay

 

Students will go back to school eventually. Here are 5 concrete ideas for helping them catch up, readjust, by Matt Barnum and Kalyn Belsha is a typically well-written Chalkbeat piece.

It highlights five great ideas, well-backed with research:

Extend the school day or year

Provide extra tutoring, particularly for students who are most behind

‘Loop’ elementary school teachers with the same group of students

Expand, or at least avoid cutting, the number of adults prepared to help students with trauma and mental health needs

Integrate coronavirus into the curriculum

 

Too bad most of them have absolutely no chance of happening.

Three of them will cost more money, and its pretty clear cuts will be made in education everywhere. Congress is playing lowball with any stimulus package supporting education, and there’s no reason to believe that’s going to change.

The looping idea is a great one. But with the forthcoming chaos of all the other changes in how the school year is going to look (see Could These Be Visions Of What Our School Year Might Look Like In The Fall? and Here’s What The Next Fall Could Look Like For Students & Teachers In California), I think you’re going to have to look hard for an administrator who is going to want to voluntarily add another one.

On the other hand, I think it’s safe to say the just about every thoughtful teacher is going to look for ways to “Integrate coronavirus into the curriculum.”

 

I want to be very clear – I’m not arguing with any of those points, and I’m glad Chalkbeat wrote about them.

However, as the old organizing axiom goes, I am also clear that I live in the world as it is, not as I’d like it to be, and we have to be clear-eyed going forward so we pick realistic issues to fight for and win.