Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

Well, here we go.

Here's Morgan Polikoff in the Los Angles Times, explaining that we are in a terrible mess, that educational attainment, or at least test scores (as measured by another testing manufacturer) are dropping, that the mental health of children in the nation is a mess. And hurray for the Biden relief plan, which throws a pile of money at all these education. But. But but but. Our educational structures can't handle this, Polikoff argues. Too many districts with boards and parent groups and teacher unions and famnilies and students and they just aren't up to "identifying what works and then providing it equitably to students and families." 

What does he think has to happen?

This is where state and national leaders simply must step in. They need to provide clear and specific guidance on the best ways to spend American Rescue Plan dollars to address the negative impacts of the pandemic on children and families. They must not leave decisions to local actors — burdening them with the task of figuring out what works and implementing it.

Local control is a bad thing, and it needs to be swept aside, as witnessed by the data we have so far.

Polikoff asserts that three things are needed going forward in this state-controlled education universe. And number one is measurement--academic tests, social and emotional well-being tests. And they should go on for years "so we can follow our progress well beyond the end of the pandemic." Oh, and the "measurement plans should be carefully constructed to ensure the results are directly useful for informing instructional and other decisions" which is a cool idea except that there are no such standardized tests currently in existence, especially if you also want them to simultaneously serve the entirely other purpose of providing government reports on how the system is going as a whole. Teachers can do this kind of assessment, and, in fact, do so every day, but not in a way that scales up for state-level progress reporting. 

Polikoff also wants high-quality interventions that are "supported or directly provided" by the state; his list includes the current reform darling, tutoring. And third, he wants to target those who need the interventions most, which he seems to already know means low-income communities and communities of color. And all of this state-run takeover "should be designed in collaboration with community leaders, not merely imposed." Sure. You know one reason this sort of thing is always targeted for low-income communities and communities of color? Because rich white folks in wealthy communities will tell the state to get stuffed and take a hike.

All of this leads us back to the old refrain:

Simply put, we can’t undo the negative effects of this national crisis on our children with 13,000 districts working independently. We must not allow our dysfunctional educational systems to block the serious response that our children need.

So here we are. The pandemic is, as Patty Levesque of Jebucation's Excel In Ed called it, an opportunity. It's ed reform's Katrina 2.0, another opportunity to cash in on a natural-born, human-exacerbated disaster. It "proves" that public education is in a shambles (though some reformsters believe it has always been a shambles) and that the old system of local control and locally-elected boards needs to be removed. 

It's not a simple situation to navigate. Katrina was a real hurricane that caused real devastation, and the pandemic has taken a real bite out of education in the US. The problems, the disaster--that's real. But when  folks shift away from "what are the actual problems, who's dealing with them, and how can we help" and start in with "this is awful and here's how the same policies that we've always pursued would be a good fit," that's the time to take a hard look at what's really going on.

Take the fabled Learning Loss. I have no doubt that learning loss, the missed opportunities to push a child's education further forward this year--that's a thing. But Learning Loss as in "these test scores prove that the pub lic education system is hopelessly broken and we must make the best of the opportunity to implement our favorite corporate ed reform"--that's some bullshit right there.

That's one other reason to fear the 2021 Big Standardized Test. I have no doubt there are some test-loving folks out there who sincerely believe that we need to take students' academic temperature to diagnose what medicine is needed. They're wrong, but they're sincere. But other folks are waiting to run the playbook that Polikoff reads from here. Look at these test scores! It's a disaster! Public education has failed! We must put the state in charge, and they must put these various private education-flavored businesses to work, and local control can't be allowed to flourish, though of course we'll work closely with community leaders, you betcha. 

We're already seeing the pandemic-fueled attack on public ed from the right--parents need vouchers so they can deal with all this. The neoliberals wave is coming--only entrepreneurial thought leaders can rescue the broken system. 

2021 is not going to be a fun year for public education.