Ok, so no one asked me (well @mathteacherjedi sort of did) what I thought the best plan for reopening schools was. And I haven’t said anything about this, because it’s not my direct area of expertise. 1/
But if I am feeling free to comment and opine on others’ plans (which I do!), it seems like I should put my money where my mouth is and share what I think the best plan for reopening school is. 2/
Qualifications: I am an economist who studies education and related topics. I have rage- and doom-scrolled through a lot of #EpiTwitter and #EconTwitter lately. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. YMMV. 3/
Biases: I have a 3-year-old at home and a spouse who is an essential worker. I would do just about anything to get her back in full-time care. 4/
What does being an economist do to help think about school reopening? It gives me two critical perspectives:
1) TRADEOFFS: every decision involves tradeoffs and balancing risks and benefits
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1) TRADEOFFS: every decision involves tradeoffs and balancing risks and benefits
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2) THE STATUS QUO IS A POLICY CHOICE: we seem to be careening towards a mostly hybrid reopening bc the powers that be seem to think we can’t reopen fully and we can’t be fully online, so we’ve stumbled towards this default. THIS IS A POLICY CHOICE, which comes with TRADEOFFS 6/
I’m next going to list some assumptions that are going into my thoughts. 7/
ASSUMPTION 1: Reopening schools/daycares is a priority. That means we need UNIVERSAL MASKING and to hold off on reopening other sectors in order to prioritize schools. When it comes to indoor activity schools >>>>>> bars. 8/
slate.com/human-interest…
slate.com/human-interest…
COROLLARY: We need federal stimulus to support sectors that cannot reopen safely so we can prioritize reopening schools safely, and because it’s the right thing to do. 9/
COROLLARY continued: Don’t get me started on everything we could have done in the past that would have made reopening safer and things we could NOW but are getting ignored. 10/
ASSUMPTION 2: Face-to-face (F2F) instruction is the goal for as many students as possible.
Why is F2F learning the goal? Virtual learning stinks and likely exacerbates inequalities. See my thread on @carycruzbueno’s research. 11/
Why is F2F learning the goal? Virtual learning stinks and likely exacerbates inequalities. See my thread on @carycruzbueno’s research. 11/
ASSUMPTION 2 continued: Schools provide vital social-emotional support and safety-net policies like food access and washing machines. Schools are a vital tool for detecting child abuse and neglect. 12/
cnn.com/2020/05/17/pol…
cnn.com/2020/05/17/pol…
ASSUMPTION 3: There needs to be an online option for families for whom in-person schooling is not an option either due to a child or a family member’s health or other risk factors. This may also be the case for areas where community transmission is extremely widespread.
ASSUMPTION 4: Not all teachers will be able to teach F2F due to their own risk factors, or their families’ risk factors.
ASSUMPTION 5: Younger children do not seem to be key transmission vectors for COVID19.
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explaincovid.org/explainers/kid…
ASSUMPTION 5: Younger children do not seem to be key transmission vectors for COVID19.
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explaincovid.org/explainers/kid…
ASSUMPTION 6: The main risk of reopening is adult-adult contact, including parents at dropoff/pickup and teachers with each other in the school building.
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(Sorry for losing the tweet count above, and should have tagged @covidexplained too.)
15/
(Sorry for losing the tweet count above, and should have tagged @covidexplained too.)
ASSUMPTION 7: If we don’t reopen, child care and homeschooling is going to primarily fall on women, with lasting implications for gender equality and women’s workforce participation. 16/
ASSUMPTION 7 continued: Hybrid options (A/B schedules, etc.) might help avoid some of the issues mentioned in Assumption 2 but cannot mitigate that we’d be relying on moms to make it work.
So, here’s my plan.
TL;DR: reopen elementary schools but not most middle/high schools; online learning option for everyone; facilitate online learning with small groups/coaching and have only a few teachers focus on content delivery.
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TL;DR: reopen elementary schools but not most middle/high schools; online learning option for everyone; facilitate online learning with small groups/coaching and have only a few teachers focus on content delivery.
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Elementary schools reopen, spread out across all school buildings. This means most middle and high schoolers will be entirely online, with the exception of in-person services for middle and high schoolers with special needs. 19/
This is really tough. Remember TRADEOFFS. Elementary is more important to reopen than middle/high school because elementary students need more supervision at home as well as being less likely to transmit the virus. 20/
I’m not one to argue that later investments in schooling aren’t effective (some of my work shows their effectiveness!), but if you’re talking bang for the buck, early investment > later investment. We are lucky that this corresponds to the lower likelihood of transmission. 21/
The goal of spreading out elementary schools across more buildings is to reduce adult-adult contact. Schools should use all entrances for pickup/dropoff & have clear protocols to reduce adult contact. 22/
If not already, students should be assigned to the physically closest school building to minimize transportation needs. 23/
Schools should use physical cues to minimize adult contact, like one-way hallways and keeping grade levels in the same area of the building. Adults should rotate into classes with students staying put. Adults should always be masked when interacting with other adults. 24/
Parents/guardians must be required to wear masks as long as there is not a medical reason why a mask is inappropriate. Children must be required to be vaccinated for all illnesses if medically possible. Families that can’t abide by these rules should use the online option. 25/
(Avoiding childhood illnesses through universal vaccination means lower likelihood of a coronavirus “scare” which turns out to be the flu, as well as protecting children from childhood diseases.) 26/
States, consortiums of school districts, and/or large school districts should provide a centralized online option for elementary grades for families that opt out, and MS and HS grades for all-online learning. We should not be recreating the wheel at each school building. 27/
A subset of teachers should focus on content generation for these online platforms (with individual schools augmenting centralized options, if desired), with the rest of teachers matched to small groups of students to provide individualized coaching and tutoring. 28/
This requires a level of coordination never before widely used in U.S. schools, where local control often means not just that individual districts & schools make policy & curriculum choices, but we have a norm where individual teachers close their door and do their own thing. 29/
Focusing teaching resources on small groups/individualized help in navigating online schooling would hopefully alleviate some of the asks on parents to manage middle and high school learning, as well as improve the online experience for students. 30/
This means there will be some weird tradeoffs, like a low-risk HS math teacher teaching 5th grade, a low-risk 5th grade T teaching 2nd grade, so a high risk 2nd grade T can work from home supporting a small group of MS learners. 31/
We’ll need to suspend some teacher licensing rules to make that possible. Again, tradeoffs. 32/
Given this shakeup, and given the complexity of all of this, we need to start planning both logistically and educationally for this NOW. And we need funding support to pay teachers to start working ASAP to help, as well as additional hazard pay. 33/
Additional funding could also be used to pay current unemployed individuals to support tutoring/small group aspects of online school. 34/
We need to invest in digital infrastructure NOW, including devices, wifi hotspots, and alternatives (TV instruction?) when access is going to be an issue. 35/
Families should be held harmless for the choice of online vs. in-person schooling. That means if they are in a specialized program or their school is a feeder into another school, they retain their position. 36/
[Whether these are good policies is a separate issue -- but in the meantime I think it’s best not to ask families to make health decisions based on school placement rules.] 37/
When a vaccine or effective treatment is available, we need compensatory policies to support children who have fallen behind, like vacation academies, summer school, and tutoring. 38/ educationnext.org/summer-vacatio…
We are going to need a sustained effort AND FUNDING for these types of compensatory policies for YEARS in order to help students. We will also need to invest in student support systems, to help children through this traumatic period both immediately & for many years to come. 39/
What is the biggest caveat here? We need $$$$$$$ to make this possible, at a time when education budgets are getting pared back. Federal stimulus for schools now. 40/
To summarize:
1) fight the virus
2) prioritize school reopening
3) focus on elementary schools for educational & health reasons
4) rethink what MS & HS look like in order to make online better
5) No student or teacher forced to F2F
6) Compensatory policies
7) FEDERAL STIMULUS
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1) fight the virus
2) prioritize school reopening
3) focus on elementary schools for educational & health reasons
4) rethink what MS & HS look like in order to make online better
5) No student or teacher forced to F2F
6) Compensatory policies
7) FEDERAL STIMULUS
41
Other caveats: Daycares need to reopen simultaneously so that teachers with young children can work. Busing is really hard to figure out (thus my recommendation that everyone is assigned to the nearest school) and even more of an issue in rural areas. 42/
Even more caveats: figuring out a protocol for what to do when there is an infection at a site is really tough, & if the answer is shut down everything for 14 days, we are right back to where we were this spring. 43/
Which is among the reasons some advocate for carefully planned online schooling now. 44/
Even more more caveats: tracking down and connecting with students who are not already engaged in school is going to be really tough. 45/
The small group approach may help with this, as would considering students at-risk of dropping out to be special needs students prioritized for a limited amount of in-person instruction. 46/
I’m certain others have had similar ideas, see for example:
And forgive me if I haven't tagged or linked you -- please add your thoughts and links! 47/
And forgive me if I haven't tagged or linked you -- please add your thoughts and links! 47/
There’s no way I’ve covered every eventuality in this thread. But putting forth a viable alternative to the within grade hybrid approaches most commonly proposed is worth it, despite the likelihood I’m inviting people to yell at me on the internet.
xkcd.com/386/
xkcd.com/386/
Some additional resources/things I’ve been reading that influenced this thread to come. 49/
.@christocleve summarizes what states are currently thinking re: reopening
The reasoning that says middle and high schools should be online is the same that higher education should be online. And even more so given that college students are more mobile than middle and high school students. @dynarski
nytimes.com/2020/06/29/bus…
nytimes.com/2020/06/29/bus…
.@AAPNews says we should prioritize F2F services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-…
I’ve been following @profemilyoster’s crowd-sourced childcare data explaincovid.org/explainers/cov…
.@eliothaspel is advocating for in-person elementary school medium.com/@ehasp/bubble-…
Please feel free to add your resources here.
End of the thread.
End of the thread.
meant to tag @BethSchueler here! sorry Beth!
This just came out with a lot of points that resonate with this thread @michelleinbklyn nytimes.com/2020/06/29/opi…
Some responses to frequent responses to this thread here:
