In December 2022, The Dispatch published a long article, captioned “Quad-City schools see historic learning losses.”
The article cited findings from the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress evaluation. The principle finding was “since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic” there have been “historic declines in student performance.”
Among the sub-findings for the 2020-21 year were the following:
•Low-income students saw the biggest drops in learning levels.
• Black middle and high school students saw lower math proficiency rates.
• Urban districts showed greater declines in math skills.
• Losses were greater in districts that spent more time in “remote learning” instruction.
In 17th century England, the education of children, other than those from upper class families, was generally provided by the family and the church, or through apprenticeships. The first public school in the American colonies was the Boston Latin School which opened in 1635. Four years later, the Mather School opened in Dorchester, Massachusetts. It was the first “free” publicly supported school in America.
The reason why public schools came into existence is not hard to understand. Many parents, who themselves had received little or no education, were incapable of educating their own children. Those fortunate enough to have received some education, often were too busy eking out meager livings, and lacked the time, or the will, to educate their children.
This is certainly not to say that educated parents, with the will to do so, are incapable of home schooling. In the years I directed theater at Alleman HS, I was fortunate to become acquainted with a number of kids who had received excellent educations by their mothers through their grade-school years.
But in the first 15 years of my judgeship, especially during those times I was assigned to hear juvenile neglect and delinquency cases, I saw why public and parochial schools were essential to the welfare of children. The one conclusion I drew, that had really stuck with me, was that most of the neglected and delinquent kids who appeared before me were products of a broken home, who had no religious affiliation, and who lacked the ability to read and, therefore, succeed in school.
As a very young boy, I was fortunate to have a dad who loved reading history, geography and detective stories, and who had a solid understanding in basic math. I can recall an evening when we were assigned math homework in subtraction that required “borrowing.” For some reason, when “Sister Mary Arithmetic,” earlier that day taught us how to “borrow,” I didn’t get it. When I tried to do the homework, it seemed impossible. When I told my dad, “I didn’t understand, “how to subtract a bigger number from a smaller number,” it took dad about one minute to explain “borrowing.” After dad’s help, subtracting the likes of 197 from 343 was easy.
But did the math scores really fall during the period of “remote learning” because the kids came from Black or low-income families? I would not draw that conclusion. Based on my life experiences, I would have concluded that the kids who suffered the greatest decline in math and reading skills came from homes were the parents (or parent, in a broken home) didn’t have the skills or the will to supplement the “Zoom” lessons.
Sadly, I think this was entirely foreseeable.
The principle reason for the creation of programs like “head start,” was to fill the void for those children whose parents couldn’t teach because they themselves lacked the education (or the will) to assist their children in their studies.
In my most recent book, "Memories of the Great Depression: A Time Remembered," the first story in the book tells the story of a “low income,” Black family with three children. The mother was a high school graduate, and a fine pianist. The father was a WWI veteran, who found work at Union Malleable. Both parents had a deep commitment to the tiny church, kitty-corner from their home, where the mother served as pianist for 50 years. The parents prayed with their children every night before bedtime. And then, notwithstanding the untimely death of the father, when the oldest son, my story teller, was in first grade, the widowed mother carried on and fought through the hard decade of the “Great Depression” to successfully raise and educate her three young children.
In later years, two of those children served this county as two of our finest probation officers. The family survived and thrived because of the values the mother instilled and cultivated in her children, and her commitment to the education of her children. Fortunately, they had help from their relatives, their little church, and a number of “kind neighbors.”
So, what’s the real cause of kids not progressing in reading and math during the pandemic?
Some children need face-to-face time with teachers far more than others. In homes where the parent(s) lacked the education to do what teachers could do in the classrooms, and could not (or would not) make up for the loss of in-school teaching, that’s where the losses were the greatest.
First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on March 12, 2023.
Copyright 2023, John Donald O'Shea
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