Compared to a normal year, students learned less in 2020, were more likely to fail their classes and were less likely to be in school at all. Is this all just temporary? As we move further into 2021, will everything start returning back to normal? Based on the research on past educational disruptions, the answers...

We read daily about students’ missed classroom learning time due to COVID-19, but that is not the only thing students lost over the last year. A well-rounded education involves enriching experiences that happen outside of the classroom walls — be it sports, music and arts, travel, debate, or other extracurricular programs that build student engagement,...

As the pandemic began last March, Reyna Frias of East Los Angeles didn’t have a laptop or internet connection for her middle and high school sons to participate in distance learning. Before long, both Reyna and her husband lost their jobs. Eventually, late last year, the whole family contracted COVID-19. It’s no surprise that Reyna’s...

Last fall, Governor Gavin Newsom approved a new state law, Assembly Bill No. 1505, which gave local districts more control over the opening of new charter schools and the renewal of existing schools’ charters. In addition the new law revises the process for appealing rejected charter school applications. Although it remains to be seen whether...

For the last 45 years, teachers unions have been the predominant political force in California, using their clout from the governor’s office down to the state’s 1,037 school districts. Except for one: the Clovis Unified School District, just north of Fresno. While there are a number of tiny districts in California without a teachers union,...

Americans assume an almost fairy-tale link between a college education and a good job. Take college freshmen. In 2019, more than 8 in 10 (83 percent) said a “very important” reason for attending college was “to be able to get a better job.” But reality is different. A 2018 study of over 800 million job...

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden on March 11 allocates $129 billion to help elementary and secondary schools rebound from the severe disruptions to school life caused by COVID-19. Additionally, the law stipulates that recipients are obliged to spend “not less than 20 percent of such funds to address learning...

Across the country, educators are working hard to support students learning in hybrid contexts, where students are attending school both online and in person. In many schools, staff availability to teach, attendance policies and a desire to have students working with teachers for as much time as possible mean many districts are pursuing a simultaneous...

When you picture a public charter school teacher, what image comes to mind? Chances are, it doesn’t look like me: a Latino male. As a former public school student in south Texas, and a longtime charter school educator, I know how powerful it is when students learn from adults who look like them, who can...

I have some bad news: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to linger for decades. One mechanism is through education. As my series on educational disruptions has shown, children who miss school time suffer academic losses in the short run, and those effects are noticeable decades later in the form of worse economic outcomes and other...