It’s not all upside, of course; the pandemic has been a tragedy for many students’ educations. Stories of hungry children, of kids who have melted away from school, of community college students doing their work in fast food parking lots to pick up a Wi-Fi signal, have exposed how deeply inequity shapes the experiences and outcomes of America’s students. The disproportionate weight of the pandemic on Black and brown and low-income students has ignited calls for a dramatic reinvestment.
Before we can contemplate the arrival of some futuristic, high-tech utopia, millions of students have to be supported to catch up academically and process trauma, something that educators say will take several years at least. Some students need to be tracked down and convinced to come back to school at all. Policymakers have to commit to long-term change beyond the Band-Aids applied over the past year to a crumbling system.
This year, Ballesteros has been teaching 4-year-olds alternately online and in person, forcing her to come up with jerry-rigged solutions like making a scale out of a coat hanger and shoelaces to teach the difference between heavy and light. The experts are “going to want to get the data, they're going to want to get the research,” she said.