Build Back Better: Education Systems Promoting Equitable Access to Learning

Ciara Rivera

Abstract: School closures impacted 55.1 million American children in March 2020, disrupting equitable access to learning for the remainder of 2019-2020 academic year (Education Week 2020). The most recent pre-pandemic data revealed a significant proportion of American children of color living in households without fixed broadband internet access, thus not able to learn equitably through virtual education. Researchers predict teachers will have to address substantial student learning losses based on trends from previous education disruptions and summer learning loss  (Bielinski, Brown, and Wagner 2020; Kuhfeld and Tarasawa 2020). Students from poorer households, especially Black and Brown families, will experience more learning losses than students from more affluent households and/or White families (Hancock et al. 2020; Garcia and Weiss 2020). Research shows that reducing learning gaps and fostering an equitable education system promotes economic growth.  This essay will examine opportunities to build back better education systems that promote equitable access to learning. Reducing the digital divide and safeguarding spending for the schools welcoming the poorest and most marginalized students, and ensuring quality education inputs for these students, will increase equitable access to learning, boost learning outcomes and promote inclusive performing education systems.

I. Introduction

Mandela’s (2003) notable statement “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world,” resonates the importance of guaranteeing all students the right to access equitable learning opportunities.  Yet, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic resulted in necessary school closures interrupting access to education for 90% of children (1.57 billion) across the world. While the majority of schools shifted to virtual learning, emerging studies show that close to 500 million children could not access remote learning due to lack of internet and or correct devices (United Nations Secretary General 2020). The global health crisis did not spare education access in the United States, where school closures impacted 55.1 million children in March 2020, disrupting equitable access to learning for the remainder of 2019-2020 academic year (Education Week 2020). The most recent pre-pandemic data [1] documented by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), revealed a significant proportion of American children of color living in homes without fixed broadband internet access [2], thus not able to learn equitably through virtual education. Broadband internet can carry large amounts of data rapidly, thus enabling virtual learning users to successfully access and maneuver platforms with teleconferencing and video capabilities, as well as downloading and uploading documents.  For example, the Idaho State Department of Education recommends at least 25 Mbps download speed and 5 Mbps Upload speed in order for students to adequately participate in all the modalities used for virtual learning in their school districts (Idaho State Department of Education n.d.).  However, students of color across the United States are impacted disproportionately by lack of broadband: American Indian/Alaskan Native (51%), Hispanic (48%), Black (47%), Asian (37%), children of households with more than one race (36%), and White (34%)  (KewalRamani et al. 2018).  

Access to high-speed internet has become increasingly critical for economic advancement, yet at the end of 2017, 21 million Americans lacked access (Busby, Tanberk, and BroadbandNow Team 2020).  Moreover, prior to the pandemic, a substantial digital divide existed between rural, suburban, and urban settings (Perrin 2019).  Previous research using data from the Computer and Internet Use supplement to the US Census Population Survey (CPS), alluded to this digital divide showing lower broadband usage among Black (53%) and Hispanics (49%) people in comparison to the national average (65%), and considerably lower usage than White non-Hispanics (71%) and Asians and Pacific Islanders (72%)  (Prieger 2015, 373-400).  Past CPS data analysis attributes this broadband usage gap to another aspect of the digital divide: not owning a computer and low-income status (Prieger and Hu 2008, 150-167). According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2020), “in 2017 the two most commonly cited main reasons that 3- to 18-year-olds did not have home internet access were that the family did not need it or was not interested in having it (43%) and that it was too expensive” (34).  Low-income families may not recognize the importance of having access to high-speed internet and adequate devices at home for their children because they may have jobs that do not require these two key elements important for fine tuning 21st Century skills.  Furthermore, this digital divide, consisting of lack of access to computers with high-speed internet, also creates learning disparities between those that can access the internet for homework and learning outside of school, and those that cannot (Reisdorf et al. 2019, 3803-3821). While U.S. school districts took advantage of the 2020 summer school break to invest in teacher development, curriculum, teaching adaptation, and planning for various Fall 2020 school reopening scenarios, hybrid learning models prevailed, requiring most American students to continue to learn through virtual remote learning platforms (Dorn et al. 2020). This essay will examine opportunities to build back better education systems that promote equitable access to learning.

II. Building back an equitable performing education system promotes economic growth

A recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) model simulation [3] disclosed 20 of the most prosperous nations could experience 1.5% lower GDP growth throughout the remainder of this century because of education systems weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the United States could lose $14.2 trillion dollars in potential GDP growth by the year 2100  (Hanushek and Woessmann 2020). Yet analysis from learning disparities existing prior to the pandemic demonstrate failed opportunities for the United States to increase productivity and economic growth. To illustrate, had the United States eliminated performance gaps between Black, Hispanic and White students between 2009 and 2019, the nation could have experienced a growth in GDP of $426–$705 billion dollars, amounting to approximately - 2% of 2019 GDP  (Hancock et al. 2020).  With this potential increase in GDP, the nation could have been in a better position to face the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. Increased learning gaps, as a result of inequitable access to learning during pandemic, will further contribute to dismal economic growth and systemic inequalities.  When schools do reopen for in-person learning, researchers predict teachers will have to address substantial student learning losses from the 2019-2020 school year, coupled with the current 2020-2021 academic year, based on trends from previous education disruptions and analysis of summer learning losses  (Bielinski, Brown, and Wagner 2020; Kuhfeld and Tarasawa 2020). Students from poorer households, especially Black and Brown families, will experience greater learning losses than students from more affluent households and/or White families, based on the pre-existing digital divide, compounded by the pivot to remote learning during the pandemic  (Hancock et al. 2020; Garcia and Weiss 2020).  Notably, as of early February 2021, according to a U.S. Institute of Education Statistics survey of 3,300 schools across 43 states, 43% of elementary students and 48% of middle school students were enrolled in fully remote schooling  (Kamenetz 2021).  The survey also unveiled racial disparities, where Asian (68%), Black (58%) and Hispanic (56%) fourth graders were more likely to access education completely virtually, compared to white (27%) students (Ibid.).

Reducing inequities is also a pathway to boost the failing economy. A 2017 International Monetary Fund report highlights low to moderate levels of inequality could be beneficial to growth at in countries with Gini coefficient index values below 27, yet in countries with Gini coefficient index values higher than 27, the effect of income inequality hampers economic growth (Grigoli and Robles 2017).  Economists use the Gini coefficient to measure income (and in some cases consumption) inequality of a population of a country or region. Lower Gini coefficients signify a more equal income distribution; the higher the coefficient, the higher the income inequality and disparities between the wealthy and the poor (Stiglitz and Rosengard 2015).  However, the current USA Gini index value is somewhere around 41(World Bank IBRD Data 2016).   Since the USA Gini coefficient index value level considerably higher than 27, the higher levels of income inequality are hampering economic growth.  Not to mention, European researchers maintain that sustained increases in income inequality leads to decreasing GDP growth, due to the growing distance between the lowest 40% of those in poverty and the rest of society. This prevents people in the lower 40% from maximizing their human capital and leads to stagnating social mobility – which consequently has negative impacts on economic development in general (OECD 2015).  Economists assert that parent’s economic success can often predict their children’s future economic potential, implying that children growing up in low-income households could possibly perpetuate their low-income status in the future (Stiglitz and Rosengard 2015).  Hence, increased income inequality places learners from low-income families at a disadvantage that is further exacerbated by the digital divide when schools pivoted to remote virtual learning.

Prior to the pandemic, leading policy experts claimed that U.S. public schools were “among the most inequitably funded of any in the industrialized world”  (Darling-Hammond 2019). Most U.S. education financing comes from state (about 48 %) and local (about 44%) budgets, and the primary source of local of funds are generated from local property taxes  (Chingos and Blagg 2017; Park 2007). Disaggregated U.S. school financing data from the late 1990’s showed substantial inequitable financing trends, where schools in districts generating high property tax revenues received the most financing, resulting in “[greater] disparities in per-student funding levels within some states than among the [50] states as a group” (Biddle and Berliner 2002, 48-59).  Many states corrected these inequities through redistribution of state funds in favor of schools in low poverty districts that could not generate sufficient local funding  (Chingos and Blagg 2017).  Yet analysis of state budget cuts induced by the aftermath of the 2009 Great Recession indicates as of 2011, state education budgets averaged 6% lower than pre-2008 recession status, impacting most negatively the school districts with higher poverty rates; as of 2017, most states had not recovered education budgets they operated in 2007  (Baker and Di Carlo 2020).  A longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. public school data [4] demonstrated that a 20% increase in expenditure per student in schools located in poorer neighborhoods resulted in positive impacts in their adult lives, including higher rates of school completion, higher earnings and reduced incidences of adult poverty (Jackson, Johnson, and Persico 2015). Consequently, targeted investment of COVID-19 relief funds in education budgets for schools with high proportions of students from poor households will be essential for reducing inequities in teaching and learning  (Baker and Di Carlo 2020).

III. Opportunities from COVID-19 pivots that could build back an equitable performing education system

A. Continued investments in technology and reducing the digital divide

Technology and virtual learning elements as vehicles for the teaching and learning process are here to stay. Prior to the widespread COVID-19 era school closures, evidence already suggested that digital divide leads to learning gaps. A 2017 European Commission report documenting results from a multivariate regression analysis of the 2015 PISA [5] learning outcomes data, finds students using information communication technology outside of school for homework positively have increased learning outcomes (Rodrigues and Biagi 2017). Similarly, in the United States, a National Center for Education Statistics analysis of tests scores from the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, established that 8th grade students with access to a home computer yielded a higher average reading scale score (268) than 8th graders who did not use a computer at home (247)  (KewalRamani et al. 2018). Likewise, 8th graders who benefitted from at-home internet access, also scored a higher average reading scale (267) than 8th grade students without access to the Internet at home (242) (Ibid.). In recent years, inequitable access to computers and internet to support out of school learning activities, has been coined the “homework gap” in the United States.  The National Education Association reported that in 2009 70% of teachers had assigned homework requiring internet access to complete, and 50% of 3000 students surveyed in 2015 claimed they could not complete a homework assignment due to lack of home internet access (McLaughlin 2020). Results from a Pew Research survey [6] of 743 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 indicated that due to not having reliable home internet connection and/or adequate devices, on average, 17% often could not complete their home assignments - and this percentage was highest (25%) amongst Black teenagers  (Anderson and Perring 2018).  A 2018 survey of students in rural Michigan school districts, where 35% of student respondents came from low-income households, found that students with fast Internet connection at home reported a 3.18 grade point average - higher than the average for students with no access (2.81) and students with only cell phone access (2.75)  (Hampton et al. 2020). Prior to the pivot to online learning, numerous advocacy groups recognized the need to reduce disparities in access to fixed broadband internet and technology  (McLaughlin 2016; Fazlullah and Ong 2019).  Representatives in congress responded to this learning equity problem through two notable bills introduced prior to the pandemic: Closing the Homework Gap Through Mobile Hotspots Act, H.R.5243, 116th Congress (2019) Homework and Gap Trust Fund Act, S.3362, 116th Congress (2020)  (Rachfal 2020).  Beyond federal level legislation, some exemplary school districts have made a concerted effort, coordinating beyond the education sector, to reduce the digital divide for low-income households. For example, Chicago took advantage of the pivot to remote learning to fast track an initiative launched before COVID-19, creating public private partnerships to ensure access to no cost high speed internet for low-income families in the South and West side neighborhoods (Spielman and Issa 2020; Chicago Public Schools 2020).  

As schools begin to transition back to in person learning, educators and students can continue to incorporate technology into education. Some examples of education technology used during the remote learning pivot that are worth capitalizing on include, but are not limited to: assessing student’s needs, progress monitoring, providing opportunities for self-paced learning for groups of students while the teacher can focus in person guidance to the ones that fell more behind.  Prior to 2020, some studies evaluated education programs using interactive computer-based instruction systems to diagnose student’s comprehension levels.  One analysis showed this type of education technology informed teaching by providing students with customized learning materials they could engage with, and complemented with in-person teacher guided instruction, research results showed this education technology strategy helped low-achieving students pass state competency tests (Bos 2005; Hannafin and Foshay 2008, 147-160). A few years before the pandemic related school-closures,  the Alliance For Excellent Education and the Stanford Center For Opportunity Policy In Education compiled research demonstrating that students became more motivated and developed stronger higher-order thinking skills when they had the opportunity to use technology to create their own content, such as “conducting research to make decisions or draw conclusions from evidence, finding and manipulating data, developing reports, creating websites, designing PowerPoint presentations, and creating spreadsheets” (Darling-Hammond, Zielezinski, and Goldman 2014).

More importantly, preparing students with 21st century technology skills is essential for workforce development. In response to former U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s remarks calling for teachers to prepare students for the 21st century with the use of technology, a survey of 1000 teachers and administrators across U.S. schools indicated the educators surveyed experienced strong student engagement with use of technology from students across ability groups, not just high achieving students  (Grunwald Associates 2010). Mary Harris Mother Jones Elementary School in Adelphi, Maryland reported their English Language Leaner (ELL) students had learned how to use their Chromebooks at school, in the ‘station rotation’ model [7] that included self-paced time at the computer for English language and mathematics self-guided activities using tailored pedagogical software (Woodson 2020). Still, the pivot to remote learning for all students, including ELL and special needs students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP), led to creative and inclusive ways for adapting education technology for all students.  Marshall Street Initiatives, a California-based coalition of Educators founded in 2019, provided free access to a plethora of useful resources for working with students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) virtually that can be adapted to continue to support their learning with technology  (Marshall Street Initiatives n.d.). Their COVID-19 Education Toolkit includes 27 different guidance tools for accommodating special needs in virtual learning environments, ensuring accessible learning environments for all students, improving student and family engagement, and a section on planning for summer learning and graduation transition.  Some notable guidance sheets include monitoring IEP for special needs students in remote learning environments, with nuanced orientation for connecting with students with limited technology, how to carry out virtual small group instruction and how best to facilitate virtual IEP meetings. Being able to pivot quickly to remote learning in the future could also help reduce learning disparities resulting from school closures due to inclement weather.  A study analyzing unplanned school closures (USC) across the nation during a two-year period (2011-2013) identified 20,723 USCs affecting over 27 million students; 79% of USC’s were due to inclement weather (Wong et al. 2014, e113755). Virtual learning can also help low-income students continue working on core skills during the school breaks to prevent learning loss.  

Technology can be a powerful tool to complement in-person teaching, but it does not replace much needed quality teaching and human interaction.  As detailed in the U.S. Department of Education’s 2017 National Education Technology Plan Update, teachers play a key role in designing and guiding the learning process side by side with their students (Office of Education Technology 2017).  Teachers can also play a key role in evaluating technology strategies, programs and software piloted by their school (Ibid.). Therefore, it is important to continue to invest in teacher professional development as well as updating teacher preparation programs to ensure teachers have the skills and ability to enhance the in person teaching and learning process with technology (Bryant et al. 2020).

B. Equitable assessments

Widespread school closures in March 2020 prompted debates on how to measure student learning in remote learning environments and how to avoid penalizing students who do not have access to virtual learning platforms and materials. Long before the pandemic-forced school closures amplified learning gaps, educators and scholars had advocated for assessment reform that can better gauge student’s learning.  Key recommendations for improved summative assessments call for more balanced assessments on performance tasks that invite students to develop more complex answers (through short essays for example), requiring more analytical skills than traditional multiple choice standardized tests (Darling-Hammond and Adamson 2014). 

It is important that educators track student learning regularly prior to end of term assessment periods.  Progress monitoring is an example of a formative assessment measure usually employed to identify student performance and adapt instruction to meet their needs in particular to the areas that they are at risk for failing (Fuchs and Fuchs 2006, 93-99). Used effectively, technology can allow for adaptable assessments based on student abilities and growth, which incorporate feedback, allowing for students to move at their own pace after full mastery, and combine both human and machine scoring (Bryant et al. 2020). Some states serve as examples of using technology for monitoring student learning during the pandemic. Florida provided free access to computer assisted student progress monitoring software for teachers to gauge students’ learning using their CARES Act funding [8] (Oliva 2020).  South Carolina, offered orientation on different modalities to employ for conducting progress monitoring in virtual learning environments  (South Carolina Department of Education n.d.).  More than ever, COVID-era educational assessment reform should build on previous advocacy for equitable, non-punitive assessments that inform what students have learned (or not yet mastered) so that teachers can adjust teaching and prioritize students’ learning needs to promote their pathway to academic success (Milner 2018, 88-89; Garcia and Weiss 2020).  Finally, new assessment and grading systems “must reflect an effort to confront and eradicate known inequities in the current system” (Minnesota Department of Education 2020). 

C. Relevant Content

The shift to remote learning, even in hybrid models, unfortunately resulted in reduced learning time.  According to analysis from surveys conducted in May 2020, students had averaged 3 hours of learning time versus 6 hours prior to the pandemic and only 37% overall of teachers surveyed (33% of teachers of students in high poverty level school districts) had reported interactions with students (via video/audio conferencing, email or phone calls/texts) (EdWeek Research Center 2020).  The same analysis revealed that 76% of teachers of students in high-poverty school districts had reported spending less time teaching new standard-aligned content (Ibid.). Educators chose the most important learning content to focus on. The pandemic also yielded multifaceted uncertainty across households, resulting in added emotional burdens on students. Presently, the urgency to respond to students’ social-emotional needs is apparent. From the same perspective of reducing inequities, it is important that educators recognize existing disparities and curate necessary curriculum content that aims to close learning gaps while building social cohesion. Moving forward, educators need to refresh curriculum content building on lessons learned from the pandemic, addressing social emotional needs as well as preparing students for 21st century higher learning and the workforce (Intercultural Development Research Association 2020).  

IV. Conclusion

Research from American and European economists demonstrate reducing learning disparities through performing education systems can boost the economy in the post pandemic recovery era, this is more vital than ever. The initial abrupt pivot to remote learning fast tracked integration of web-based and computer-assisted technology into the everyday teaching and learning experience.  The innovative practices that emerged need to be continually built upon, as we strive to reduce the learning gaps and propel our education systems.  As the pandemic aftermath results in an economic downturn, states must strive for equitable allocations of education budgets, especially in the districts with high concentrations of poverty. Reducing the digital divide and safeguarding spending for schools welcoming the poorest and most marginalized students, all the while ensuring quality education inputs for these students, will increase equitable access to learning, boost learning outcomes and promote inclusive performing education systems. Reducing inequities and boosting learning outcomes will improve future economic productivity. Let’s build back equitable performant education systems.