4A ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2020 ❚ NORTHWEST COMMUNITY PRESS
OPINION
COVID-19 worsens education inequality Byron P. White and Marina Hopkins Guest Columnists Community Press
For organizations and school districts that have been focused on reducing education inequities by race and class, the coming months will produce an inevitable setback. With schools closed and learning happening primarily in quarantined homes, children from economically privileged families will fare better through the COVID-19 outbreak. Those children are more likely to have access to technology needed for instruction. Their parents tend to have jobs that allow for consistent, hands-on educational support.
“We will need every innovation at our disposal to make up lost ground for black, Latino and low-income students.” Since economically disadvantaged children – who are disproportionately black and Latino – generally perform academically at lower levels than their white and more affl uent counterparts, the achievement gap will only worsen. However, as we prepare to regroup when social isolation ends, this crisis also will have spurred innovations for how to connect with students at home and new ways to implement distance learning. When physical distancing subsides, we will have no excuse to go back to the education ecosystem that has perpetuated racial and economic disparities for decades. StrivePartnership is looking to help inventory these new practices, assess their impact and advocate for their sustainability as we go forward.
Armand Tatum, Western Hills High School football coach and teacher, helps hand out learning packets with Lezlie Christian, Western Hills High School theater and dance teacher, on Monday, April 13, outside Western Hills High School in West Price Hill. ALBERT CESARE/THE ENQUIRER
The imperative to address this sudden, unprecedented educational disruption with equally disruptive system responses is global. UNESCO estimates that 1.5 billion students are aff ected by school and university closures due to COVID-19. In response, the United Nations organization has launched a Global Education Coalition to establish approaches to develop more open and fl exible education systems. “School closures widen learning inequalities and hurt vulnerable children and youth disproportionately,” UNESCO states on its website. Recently, on StrivePartnership’s Saturday morning radio show, “Class in Session,” the leaders of four institutions that provide care and learning to urban youth – the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati, The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, and Cincinnati Pre-
school Promise – shared new ways they are being compelled to engage families. With their neighborhood-based facilities closed, they are deploying novel approaches to promote student development using social media, technology and other interactions. The YMCA is streaming programs online, starting with fi tness classes for all age and ability levels. The library hosts virtual reading time with its children’s librarians and curates the best online content being produced elsewhere. The CRC is distributing “Rec to Go” packets full of activities and information for elementary and middle school children. Preschool Promise is providing remote learning materials for preschoolers on its website. While these eff orts are useful to get us through the crisis, the most eff ective ones being developed by these organizations and other providers will still be needed going forward. Junia Howell, an
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urban sociologist and researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, recently shared through a webinar hosted by StrivePartnership that the real inequalities will show up down the line. “The long-term is where we’re going to see detrimental results from all this,” said Howell, a native Cincinnatian whose research has tracked inequalities along race and class that emerge following natural disasters. We will need every innovation at our disposal to make up lost ground for black, Latino and low-income students. StrivePartnership is prepared to help identify and sustain the most eff ective eff orts emerging from this crisis as our community continues its drive toward education equity. Byron P. White is executive director of StrivePartnership. Marina Hopkins is StrivePartnership’s director of operations.
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