Like with the economy, education leaders are pondering how, when and under what circumstances schools should be re-opened in the coming months. Very tough and challenging decisions are to be made soon. And it starts with the very idea of “re-opening”. It might be an inaccurate concept since it implies a simple flipping of the switch. Presto! … we are back to where we were when we closed. Well, to my way of thinking it...

By Richard M. Long, the executive director of the Learning First Alliance. It’s an understatement to say that we’re living at a time of uncertainty. Public education is a large endeavor: While we have 50.8 million students in traditional public schools, we also have 14,000 school districts, many communities, and families who all have different needs. Yet all want to know, what are we planning and when will the school buildings...

A school closed due to the COVID-19 epidemic sits empty in New OrleansLAN WEI/XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES As Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote, ““It is easier to start a war than to end it.” The same can be said about education’s battle with covid-19 — starting with the abrupt closing of over 90% of the schools around the country in March and leading to the return to school (or some variation thereof) in the...

With stunning speed the COVID crisis has disrupted most every sector of our society in immeasurable ways. For schooling, the changes have been particularly acute and abrupt. As Education Week points out in their report on closings, in just a few weeks “…  School closures due to coronavirus have impacted at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools and affected at least 55.1 million students.” That’s over 90% of...

This disheartening commentary from The Hill observes that the responses to the pandemic and a faltering economy are increasingly becoming defined simplistically by partisan affiliations rather than by science, evidence or circumstance.  From where I sit, this is a dangerous development that could lead us down a self-destructive path that will make recovery all the more distant and difficult. And suddenly schooling has been thrust into...

In this recent WaPo article, Eric Gordon, chief executive for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District said it best, “We have to have a recovery plan for education … I’m really worried that people think schools and colleges just flipped to digital and everything’s fine and we can just return to normal. That’s simply not the case.” Indeed, the recovery process for learning loss will result in a “generation of...