This and That - Public Education Nationally

Probably one of biggest national public education stories is about how - across the country - districts are losing students. Indeed, it is projected by SPS that their enrollment will fall to under 50,000 next school year, a number that hasn't been seen in probably a decade. To make clear, district lose students? They lose money.

From The NY Times:

All together, America’s public schools have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020, according to a recently published national survey. State enrollment figures show no sign of a rebound to the previous national levels any time soon.

A broad decline was already underway in the nation’s public school system as rates of birth and immigration have fallen, particularly in cities. But the coronavirus crisis supercharged that drop in ways that experts say will not easily be reversed.

No overriding explanation has emerged yet for the widespread drop-off. But experts point to two potential causes: Some parents became so fed up with remote instruction or mask mandates that they started home-schooling their children or sending them to private or parochial schools that largely remained open during the pandemic.

For example:

In some states where schools eschewed remote instruction — Florida, for instance — enrollment has not only rebounded, but remains robust. An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, concluded last month that remote instruction was a major driver around the country, with enrollment falling most in districts most likely to have delayed their return to in-person classrooms.

As well: 

And other families were thrown into such turmoil by pandemic-related job losses, homelessness and school closures that their children simply dropped out. 

At the same time, some families are leaving their local public schools not because they are abandoning the system altogether but because they have moved to other parts of the country that are more affordable. 

Enrollment has surged as well in rural resort areas, driven by the relocation of tech workers and others able to work remotely, particularly after the pandemic set in.

This story is a national trend that could affect students who eat in their school's cafeteria in Seattle Schools. From U.S. News&World Report:

Ongoing supply chain disruptions, inflation and rising gas prices produced a maelstrom for school nutrition teams this school year – coming on the heels of a year defined by pandemic-related disruptions that required them to be creative to ensure students were fed, especially in communities with overwhelming food insecurity. Threatening to make matters worse, nutrition waivers that have provided generous reimbursement rates and allowed them flexibility from complying with meal patterns and nutrition standard requirements – waivers that they say have been crucial in allowing school meal programs to operate at all – are set to expire at the end of June, supercharging an already unpredictable landscape.

Now, as in-person learning stabilizes and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona talks about moving beyond COVID-19 along with the rest of society, school nutrition directors and advocates are instead bracing for a new school year that many anticipate will be impossible to navigate without help from Congress.

“The situation is only getting worse,” says Jillien Meier, director of the No Kid Hungry campaign. “We are hearing directly from school state directors that they would have taken the COVID year – that hybrid year, that quanatine year – over what they're experiencing now and what they anticipate next year.”

“This is dire,” she says. “And they think next year will be worse.” 

 

As it stands, the nutrition waivers, which were approved at the outset of the pandemic, will expire June 30 without congressional action to extend them.

I keep warning and warning about this; please parents, ask your teacher what apps or computer programs are used in their classroom and what student data is required. DO NOT allow your child to give out their middle name, their birthdate or their address.  From CNN on virtual learning apps:

Millions of students who participated in virtual learning during the Covid-19 pandemic had their personal data and online behaviors tracked by educational apps and websites without their consent and in many cases shared with third-party advertising technology companies, a new report has found.
Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy organization, this week published the findings of an investigation conducted from March 2021 to August 2021 that looked into the educational services, including online learning tools, used by students all over the world when school districts shifted to remote learning. 

 

Of the 164 products reviewed across 49 countries, Human Rights Watch found 146 (89%) appeared to engage in data practices that "risked or infringed on children's rights." These practices included monitoring or having the ability to monitor children without the students' or parents' consent, and collecting a range of personal data, according to the report, such as their identity, location, their online activity and behaviors, and information about their family and friends.

Teaching students how to read is getting major press because of the move back to phonics and away from so-called whole-child. From The NY Times:

The focus was more on stories — theme, character, plot — less on sounding out words.

Her curriculum, “Units of Study,” is built on a vision of children as natural readers, and it has been wildly popular and profitable. She estimates that a quarter of the country’s 67,000 elementary schools use it. At Columbia University’s Teachers College, she and her team have trained hundreds of thousands of educators.
But in recent years, parents and educators who champion the “science of reading” have fiercely criticized Professor Calkins and other supporters of balanced literacy. They cite a half-century of research that shows phonics — sound it out exercises that are purposefully sequenced — is the most effective way to teach reading, along with books that build vocabulary and depth.