K12LEADERS

Learning Loss and the Blame Game

Written by

Mike Bronder

in

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I like The 74 and read their updates most mornings… Todays’ piece on 40,000 LA high school students being off track falls into a common trap as it outlines a number of distressing facts that we’ve heard or anticipated for this past year… (https://www.the74million.org/article/report-learning-loss-data-shows-40000-los-angeles-high-school-students-off-track-to-graduate)

But we continue to ‘skate to where the puck is, not where it will be,’ to paraphrase Wayne Gretsky, by ringing our hands and proclaiming that students need to “learn more now” and teachers need to “teach faster.”

That’s all embedded in some good observation, however… there are equity issues, there are remote learning issues, there are equity issues, there are staffing issues, there are health and safety concerns.

If we’re going to have a successful response we need to shift how we’re approaching this fight..

We need to accomodate the current situation, not blame students and teachers for what we call “learning loss.” Blame? Yes… when someone says “Students are going to have a hard time catching up,” that is putting the blame on the student.

And we need to plan for better educational continuity, by ensuring that we have the curricular, technological, HR, and safety plans in place by Fall 2021 to create a meaningful and sustainable repsonse to our new normal.

What would you include in your “Educational Continuity Plan?”

Comments

One response to “Learning Loss and the Blame Game”

  1. Suzy Brooks Avatar
    Suzy Brooks

    Great share – The 74 was new to me. Thank you!

    I keep thinking – the kids coming back to school is not a “finish line” after a year of trials and tribulations and challenges…. I see it as a new “starting line”, where we can take the best of what we’ve learned and bring it forth to improve teaching and learning. It’s the Optimist in me.

    We’re in a pilot with Education Superhighway’s Bridge to Broadband in an effort to better understand the connectivity landscape in our district. Though our district is small, we need to know all of our students have access to reliable internet service. If not? We need to rectify it.

    After “going back to school”, it may seem a moot point. However, our teachers have expanded their skill sets to a degree where spinning or flipping their lessons is a viable option moving forward. If teachers are creating activators, summarizers, tutorials, reviews or enrichment opportunities – having access to those resources at home (or daycare, or at work, or on the bus) is just as important as at school.

    The LAUSD stats are disturbing, and will not be solved simply by those students returning to in-person learning. Students will not be fully successful if they are only engaged at school. We are not guaranteed a future free from pandemics, remote teaching or hybrid learning. We need to push forward, finding ways to optimize PD, budgets, access and SEL support in an equitable fashion.

    Blame is a luxury we don’t have time for. Our students deserve more.

    Reply

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