Restarting and Reinventing School: Learning in the Time of COVID and Beyond
Author: Darling-Hammond, Linda
Date: 2020-09-14
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: COVID-19,Pandemics,School Closing,School Schedules,Disease Control,Access to Computers,Educational Technology,Distance Education,Blended Learning,Student Needs,Social Emotional Learning,Interpersonal Relationship,Culturally Relevant Education,Time Factors (Learning),Community Schools,Educational Innovation,Teacher Competencies,Educational Equity (Finance),Educational Policy

Across the United States, state education agencies and school districts face daunting challenges and difficult decisions for restarting schools as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. As state and district leaders prepare for what schooling will look like in 2020 and beyond, there is an opportunity to identify evidence-based policies and practices that will enable them to seize this moment to rethink school in ways that can transform learning opportunities for students and teachers alike. The current system took shape almost exactly a century ago, when school designs and funding were established to implement mass education on an assembly-line model organized to prepare students for their &quot;places in life&quot;--judgments that were enacted within contexts of deep-seated racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural prejudices. In a historical moment when we have more knowledge about human development and learning, when society and the economy demand a more challenging set of skills, and when--at least in the rhetoric--there is a greater social commitment to equitable education, it is time to use the huge disruptions caused by this pandemic to reinvent the systems of education. The question is: How can these understandings be harnessed as necessarily redesign school? How can there be transformation what has not been working for children and for society into a more equitable and empowering future? This report provides an overarching framework that focuses on how policymakers as well as educators can support equitable, effective teaching and learning regardless of the medium through which that takes place. This framework provides research, state and local examples, and policy recommendations in 10 key areas that speak both to transforming learning and to closing opportunity and achievement gaps. It illustrates how policymakers and educators can: (1) Close the digital divide; (2) Strengthen distance and blended learning; (3) Assess what students need; (4) Ensure supports for social and emotional learning; (5) Redesign schools for stronger relationships; (6) Emphasize authentic, culturally responsive learning; (7) Provide expanded learning time; (8) Establish community schools and wraparound supports; (9) Prepare educators for reinventing school; and (10) Leverage more adequate and equitable school funding. Each of these 10 policy priorities will help schools reinvent themselves around principles of equity, authentic learning, and stronger relationships, and they require shifts from policymakers and educators alike. [This report was written in collaboration with Aneesha Badrinarayan, Jessica Cardichon, Peter W. Cookson Jr., Michael Griffith, Sarah Klevan, Anna Maier, Monica Martinez, Hanna Melnick, Natalie Truong, and Steve Wojcikiewicz.]