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I spent the last couple of days listening to and talking with secondary school administrators from across Virginia. You know what their big challenges and concerns are? They are most definitely not NAEP scores. They are most definitely not whether schools were remote too long.
If you are a pundit or think tanker or journalist focused on those things, you are very lost.
School administrators are worried about simply getting kids to school. They are worried about teacher turnover. They are worried, literally, about getting the busses to run on time. They are working their asses off.
Chronic absenteeism is on all of their minds. And, if you think there's one cause or one reason, you are very wrong. But, if there is a leading reason, based on my conversations, it's that schools just aren't of value to kids (and some of their parents).
Addressing that challenge is wicked hard, but I promise you that school administrators are bending over backwards and doing everything short of dragging kids to school. They are showing up in homes. They are assigning mentors/buddies. You name it.
And I heard stories of assistant principals who have had to step in and drive busses. School counselors who have become long term subs. Administrators who are doing everything and anything they can just to make the school run. Etc.
So, again, if you are tilting at the NAEP windmills, you are missing the mark in your education punditry.
Oh, and if you think The Solution™️ to "learning loss" is more school or "intensive tutoring", you will have to explain how that is supposed to work when kids who aren't doing school in the first place.
(Oh, and to my ed leadership professor collagues... get out to practitioner conferences. We ask sitting and aspiring school leaders to learn from us. We have much to learn from them, too.)
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