Does Arlington have a plan to make up for pandemic learning losses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Can we NOT have the same thread over and over again in every single school forum????

OP, get it through your head that no school in the world is planning to make up anything. Teachers are left to fill in gaps as they go when they identify them in their students, which is actually not a bad idea... if you have a good teacher, that is. The US doesn't have a lot of good teachers, because education degrees scrape the bottom of the barrel and in times of hiring difficulties, schools are even less picky.

So. Teach your own kid please. I've been doing this for ever, because my oldest has special needs, but seriously, do it. It will cost you very little and make a huge difference. I know. This isn't what you pay taxes for, schools should be doing their job, you have a full-time job, blah blah blah. If Obama's single mother could do it, and I could do it, so can you. Or if you want the government to step in, you'll have to vote for a super lefty one, because they're the only ones that would care even a little bit

OP here. I do teach my own kids. And I had a tutor for them during COVID so I think they stayed at grade level (and their writing probably improved more than it would have in a normal year.) But now they are bored in school because other kids are behind and one of them just complained that their teacher was giving them worksheets that said they were for a younger grade. having your kids at grade level or ahead and other kids behind is not a good situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Can we NOT have the same thread over and over again in every single school forum????

OP, get it through your head that no school in the world is planning to make up anything. Teachers are left to fill in gaps as they go when they identify them in their students, which is actually not a bad idea... if you have a good teacher, that is. The US doesn't have a lot of good teachers, because education degrees scrape the bottom of the barrel and in times of hiring difficulties, schools are even less picky.

So. Teach your own kid please. I've been doing this for ever, because my oldest has special needs, but seriously, do it. It will cost you very little and make a huge difference. I know. This isn't what you pay taxes for, schools should be doing their job, you have a full-time job, blah blah blah. If Obama's single mother could do it, and I could do it, so can you. Or if you want the government to step in, you'll have to vote for a super lefty one, because they're the only ones that would care even a little bit

OP here. I do teach my own kids. And I had a tutor for them during COVID so I think they stayed at grade level (and their writing probably improved more than it would have in a normal year.) But now they are bored in school because other kids are behind and one of them just complained that their teacher was giving them worksheets that said they were for a younger grade. having your kids at grade level or ahead and other kids behind is not a good situation.

PP you replied to. My other child has always been advanced and above grade level. Some children are like that, and believe me, it's better than the alternative. Yes, she's bored, finishes ahead of everyone and has straight As effortlessly in advanced classes. But she will go to a great college and have a good career with that brain and that drive. I do not worry about her at all. I worry about my kid with special needs.

Please, get some perspective. And talk to your kids' teachers. If they're lucky the teacher will give them more challenging tasks. DD reads books from home and doodles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Can we NOT have the same thread over and over again in every single school forum????

OP, get it through your head that no school in the world is planning to make up anything. Teachers are left to fill in gaps as they go when they identify them in their students, which is actually not a bad idea... if you have a good teacher, that is. The US doesn't have a lot of good teachers, because education degrees scrape the bottom of the barrel and in times of hiring difficulties, schools are even less picky.

So. Teach your own kid please. I've been doing this for ever, because my oldest has special needs, but seriously, do it. It will cost you very little and make a huge difference. I know. This isn't what you pay taxes for, schools should be doing their job, you have a full-time job, blah blah blah. If Obama's single mother could do it, and I could do it, so can you. Or if you want the government to step in, you'll have to vote for a super lefty one, because they're the only ones that would care even a little bit

OP here. I do teach my own kids. And I had a tutor for them during COVID so I think they stayed at grade level (and their writing probably improved more than it would have in a normal year.) But now they are bored in school because other kids are behind and one of them just complained that their teacher was giving them worksheets that said they were for a younger grade. having your kids at grade level or ahead and other kids behind is not a good situation.

People who say things like "teach your own kids" are missing the point - upper middle class families do teach their own kids, hire tutors and generally started off at a higher level. But the disparity between these families and the vast majority of Arlington families is just going to grow if Arlington doesn't make up for pandemic learning loss. And that is going to affect us all - higher crime rates from kids who become adults who don't know enough to hold a job, lower educational standards from schools just trying to move these kids along, an economy that drags because an entire generation need additional support. It's an investment that is worth making if only people can look at the long term (and not only at families should teach their own kids.)

America was built on public education - it will only be as good as that education in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SOLs are meaningless. The schools teach to the test. They stop all new leaning by April to review. I have a kid who was borderline dyslexic and received a passing grade on reading. We’ve spent a lot of time and $ outside of APS to undo the damage of ES reading program

My high school student is still learning new content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SOLs are meaningless. The schools teach to the test. They stop all new leaning by April to review. I have a kid who was borderline dyslexic and received a passing grade on reading. We’ve spent a lot of time and $ outside of APS to undo the damage of ES reading program

My high school student is still learning new content.

So is my 4th grader. He is working on an immigration project that is due after SOLs are over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. Can we NOT have the same thread over and over again in every single school forum????

OP, get it through your head that no school in the world is planning to make up anything. Teachers are left to fill in gaps as they go when they identify them in their students, which is actually not a bad idea... if you have a good teacher, that is. The US doesn't have a lot of good teachers, because education degrees scrape the bottom of the barrel and in times of hiring difficulties, schools are even less picky.

So. Teach your own kid please. I've been doing this for ever, because my oldest has special needs, but seriously, do it. It will cost you very little and make a huge difference. I know. This isn't what you pay taxes for, schools should be doing their job, you have a full-time job, blah blah blah. If Obama's single mother could do it, and I could do it, so can you. Or if you want the government to step in, you'll have to vote for a super lefty one, because they're the only ones that would care even a little bit

OP here. I do teach my own kids. And I had a tutor for them during COVID so I think they stayed at grade level (and their writing probably improved more than it would have in a normal year.) But now they are bored in school because other kids are behind and one of them just complained that their teacher was giving them worksheets that said they were for a younger grade. having your kids at grade level or ahead and other kids behind is not a good situation.

People who say things like "teach your own kids" are missing the point - upper middle class families do teach their own kids, hire tutors and generally started off at a higher level. But the disparity between these families and the vast majority of Arlington families is just going to grow if Arlington doesn't make up for pandemic learning loss. And that is going to affect us all - higher crime rates from kids who become adults who don't know enough to hold a job, lower educational standards from schools just trying to move these kids along, an economy that drags because an entire generation need additional support. It's an investment that is worth making if only people can look at the long term (and not only at families should teach their own kids.)

America was built on public education - it will only be as good as that education in the future.

Correct. The wealthy kids will do fine, as the article described. It's the underpriviliged kids who are far behind and don't have people to teach them at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just read this Atlantic article about pandemic learning losses and what school districts should be doing. Since Arlington was closed for longer than most other districts, does anyone know what their plans are? Are the summer school plans adequate? When I ask my kids' teachers all they say is "it will be fine because the curriculum spirals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

This isn't true. APS was not closed longer than other districts in the area. In fact they had students in the buildings before both Alexandria and Fairfax did. On to of that ever since last summer teachers been trying that hardest to make up for pandemic learning losses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read this Atlantic article about pandemic learning losses and what school districts should be doing. Since Arlington was closed for longer than most other districts, does anyone know what their plans are? Are the summer school plans adequate? When I ask my kids' teachers all they say is "it will be fine because the curriculum spirals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

This isn't true. APS was not closed longer than other districts in the area. In fact they had students in the buildings before both Alexandria and Fairfax did. On to of that ever since last summer teachers been trying that hardest to make up for pandemic learning losses

Maybe but the obsession with equity has hobbled the ability to move forward when many students don't have equivalent access/tools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning was greatly interrupted by the pandemic. We should absolutely address that with intensive remediation - 1:1 tutoring, summer school, etc.

But don’t blame distance learning. The study doesn’t support the causation, only the correlation.

From the summary of the report:
It is possible that the relationships we have observed are not entirely causal, that family stress in the districts that remained remote both caused the decline in achievement and drove school officials to keep school buildings closed. However, even if that were the case, our results highlighting the differential losses in high poverty schools that went remote are still critical for targeting recovery efforts.

This is a total misrepresentation of the report. “Not entirely causal” is different from “not causal.” Distance learning was absolutely the problem. The study just confirmed what every parent was seeing with their own eyes.

From the author of the report:

What happened in spring 2020 was like flipping off a switch on a vital piece of our social infrastructure. Where schools stayed closed longer, gaps widened; where schools reopened sooner, they didn’t. Schools truly are, as Horace Mann famously argued, the “balance wheel of the social machinery.”

Like any other parent who witnessed their child dozing in front of a Zoom screen last year, I was not surprised that learning slowed. However, as a researcher, I did find the size of the losses startling—all the more so because I know that very few remedial interventions have ever been shown to produce benefits equivalent to 22 weeks of additional in-person instruction.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SOLs are meaningless. The schools teach to the test. They stop all new leaning by April to review. I have a kid who was borderline dyslexic and received a passing grade on reading. We’ve spent a lot of time and $ outside of APS to undo the damage of ES reading program

My high school student is still learning new content.

So is my 4th grader. He is working on an immigration project that is due after SOLs are over.

My second & seventh graders are both still learning new content, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read this Atlantic article about pandemic learning losses and what school districts should be doing. Since Arlington was closed for longer than most other districts, does anyone know what their plans are? Are the summer school plans adequate? When I ask my kids' teachers all they say is "it will be fine because the curriculum spirals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

This isn't true. APS was not closed longer than other districts in the area. In fact they had students in the buildings before both Alexandria and Fairfax did. On to of that ever since last summer teachers been trying that hardest to make up for pandemic learning losses

Wrong. Fairfax went back sooner than APS (February) and then many schools in FFX brought kids back 4 days per week in April.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read this Atlantic article about pandemic learning losses and what school districts should be doing. Since Arlington was closed for longer than most other districts, does anyone know what their plans are? Are the summer school plans adequate? When I ask my kids' teachers all they say is "it will be fine because the curriculum spirals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

This isn't true. APS was not closed longer than other districts in the area. In fact they had students in the buildings before both Alexandria and Fairfax did. On to of that ever since last summer teachers been trying that hardest to make up for pandemic learning losses

Wrong. Fairfax went back sooner than APS (February) and then many schools in FFX brought kids back 4 days per week in April.

That’s because APS allowed more kids to change to in-person if they wanted. FCPS didn’t do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Learning was greatly interrupted by the pandemic. We should absolutely address that with intensive remediation - 1:1 tutoring, summer school, etc.

But don’t blame distance learning. The study doesn’t support the causation, only the correlation.

From the summary of the report:
It is possible that the relationships we have observed are not entirely causal, that family stress in the districts that remained remote both caused the decline in achievement and drove school officials to keep school buildings closed. However, even if that were the case, our results highlighting the differential losses in high poverty schools that went remote are still critical for targeting recovery efforts.

This is a total misrepresentation of the report. “Not entirely causal” is different from “not causal.” Distance learning was absolutely the problem. The study just confirmed what every parent was seeing with their own eyes.

From the author of the report:

What happened in spring 2020 was like flipping off a switch on a vital piece of our social infrastructure. Where schools stayed closed longer, gaps widened; where schools reopened sooner, they didn’t. Schools truly are, as Horace Mann famously argued, the “balance wheel of the social machinery.”

Like any other parent who witnessed their child dozing in front of a Zoom screen last year, I was not surprised that learning slowed. However, as a researcher, I did find the size of the losses startling—all the more so because I know that very few remedial interventions have ever been shown to produce benefits equivalent to 22 weeks of additional in-person instruction.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

Yes, lots of anecdotal data points.

At least the author is being honest that there were other factors that may have led to disparity — factors that were not taken into account in the study. We do know there is a strong correlation at a minimum.

Regardless of the cause(s), we should continue to push for remediation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read this Atlantic article about pandemic learning losses and what school districts should be doing. Since Arlington was closed for longer than most other districts, does anyone know what their plans are? Are the summer school plans adequate? When I ask my kids' teachers all they say is "it will be fine because the curriculum spirals."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/schools-learning-loss-remote-covid-education/629938/

This isn't true. APS was not closed longer than other districts in the area. In fact they had students in the buildings before both Alexandria and Fairfax did. On to of that ever since last summer teachers been trying that hardest to make up for pandemic learning losses

Falls Church City went back first.

APS made a massive mistake and irrecoverably harmed to students.