key: cord-0047648-6fptiwmy
authors: Walters, Anne
title: Inequities in access to education: Lessons from the COVID‐19 pandemic
date: 2020-07-01
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1002/cbl.30483
sha: c0f7c1440fc22f0c1499c23ee08aea17de7ba65f
doc_id: 47648
cord_uid: 6fptiwmy

The COVID‐19 pandemic has brought attention to the stark inequities in public education worldwide, with the United Nations sharing these statistics: Schools closed in 191 countries, affecting 1.5 billion students and 63 million primary and secondary school teachers. Half of students did not have access to a computer, and 40% did not have internet access. A total of 56 million children live in areas that are not served by mobile networks — for example, in sub‐Saharan Africa. In the United States, about 7 million school‐aged children are in homes without home internet service.

T he COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention to the stark inequities in public education worldwide, with the United Nations sharing these statistics: Schools closed in 191 countries, affecting 1.5 billion students and 63 million primary and secondary school teachers. Half of students did not have access to a computer, and 40% did not have internet access. A total of 56 million children live in areas that are not served by mobile networks -for example, in sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States, about 7 million school-aged children are in homes without home internet service.

On May 23, The Boston Globe noted that 20% of Boston public school students have not logged into their virtual learning programs since May 4 (Tonnes, 2020) . This may not be a fully accurate picture because of difficulties in tracking this information, but it is nonetheless startling. Two of the primary impediments noted are lack of internet connection and difficulty gaining access to district Chromebooks. English-language learners seem to be particularly affected. Solutions have been to set up an information hotline, employ school-based problem-solving teams, and/or send a school social worker out to the child's home to assist with connecting. Clearly, this has required creative thinking among the school teams and will necessitate further work on alternatives such as community radio or TV broadcasts, both in the United States and internationally.

Schools were caught by surprise by the speed of closures, and those that already had robust online learning platforms certainly fared better. In addition, lower-resourced districts with as many of 100% of their students relying on school breakfast and lunch programs focused initially on food security, and thus were slower to address access to learning. Funding initiatives from a variety of sources provided internet access and technology support for some.

The pandemic has also brought attention to the inequities in the abilities of parents to take on virtual learning. For children in two-parent families, often higher-resourced to begin with, the transition to online learning has been easier. For single-parent families, large families living in small spaces, families where one or both parents are without advanced education, and the 22% of the homeless who are children, this task is Herculean (Schneider, 2020) .

Our local experiences in a behavioral health setting with children engaged in online learning have been varied. One common feature, though, is the extreme stress it creates for families of children with mental health needs who are often already struggling with basic compliance and day-to-day life at home prior to the pandemic.

Adding teaching to the mix has been the final straw for many and has led to increased demand for services, which are also virtual and at times insufficient to keep families out of crisis. More of our treatment has been focused on establishing schedules and routines for families who are not accustomed to having to structure their child's entire day without access to social, community opportunities or school. Anecdotally, length of stay in higher-level services at present is longer. Yet we are all too aware that there are populations that we do not have access to -some of which may be coping well and some of whom are not.

It has been notable to see variability in the involvement of schools with these children as well. For the most part, personnel have been eager to collaborate, and most parents have had numbers and email addresses to make this contact possible. Some teams have set up weekly meetings for children and their families with school counselors and social workers to assist vulnerable students with their adjustment, and the academic teams have also been willing to check in with specific students as needed. Many parents have been appreciative of finding more support than they had anticipated. At the same time, this is not the experience of all.

In many ways, this is not new information; we have been talking about educational inequality and the achievement gap for a generation now. Most researchers on public education are noting the pressing need for a focus on access to the internet and investing in the technology needed to close the digital divide in online learning for all students.

Others have noted that this is not just an educational issue, but points to broader inequalities, a viewpoint that would be supported by the health disparities that have been highlighted among communities during this pandemic. All suggestions seem to point to a need to expand resources for schools serving low-income children -not just with access to online learning, but with other interventions designed to address the achievement gap. These include reduced class sizes, summer programming, early childhood education -all interventions that we know will reduce the inequalities that have been highlighted during this challenging time.

Perspective: How COVID-19 laid bare the vast inequities in U.S. public education

One in five Boston public school children may be virtual dropouts