We Need an Education Recovery Plan

Photo from Pixabay

​​We can’t forget schools and their academic partners when calculating investments aimed at repairing the damage wrought from battling this global pandemic.  

When school starts back up in September, experts predict that students will have fallen behind because of the extended amount of time they are spending away from the classroom.  The question is, what are we going to do about it.

Everyone from the President down to local mayors and elected officials are transfixed these days on two items:  stopping the spread of the Covid virus and getting our economy back on its feet.  In response, we see massive investment in economic and health care recovery plans.  And no one can argue with that.

But, what about the kids who are suffering and the long-term effect this will have on their academics and consequently on their life-long earning capacity?  Most have heard of the “summer slide” -  the amount of back-sliding students do during the summer months while they are away from school.  Well, what about the “Covid Slide?”  What is our plan for that?  Where is our Education Recovery Plan?

The Pew Research Center affirms that 76% of lower income parents are concerned about their children falling behind in school because of the disruptions caused by Covid 19.  And, they should be concerned. In a recent Op-Ed article in the Washington Post, education expert Michael Pirelli stated “All of this time away from school is going to be particularly devastating for poor and working-class youngsters, many of whom are already below grade level”

I fear that the immense expense of battling the pandemic coupled with the massive losses in revenue for businesses and consequent loss of taxes for governments, that we will see austere budgets coming from our state and local governments in the near future.  And, as a result we will be told – repeatedly – that we don’t have money for the kids.

We can’t forget schools and their academic partners when calculating investments aimed at repairing the damage wrought from battling this global pandemic.  We should not allow our elected leaders to expect schools and lower income children to shoulder the consequences of these extraordinary times, on their own.

I write this now because I do believe that struggling kids will get left behind and that schools will be expected to add to their already overtasked agendas the work of making these students whole – and to do so with the same or less dollars than they already have.

I think it is well worth our time and effort now and on an ongoing  basis to contact our elected officials and encourage them to forge an education recovery plan.  Our leaders need to be aware that an education recovery plan is just as important as crafting an economic and health care recovery plan.
 
Our students are arguably more deserving of help than the 71 publicly traded companies that received $300 Million in federal loans aimed at aiding small businesses. 

Please join me in carrying a simple message to our elected leaders:  Create an education recovery plan to prevent the Covid slide by investing in our schools and our students.