Picture school and you likely cast an image of students at desks, raised hands, and the lively chatter of a classroom. Only recently might you imagine a solo child in front of a screen with 25+ squares projecting the image of their classmates and teacher. While it is certainly possible for some students to succeed in a quality virtual model, our schools and teachers have not been afforded the time, support, funding or training to deliver an optimal virtual classroom experience.

Source: Education Week

Prior to COVID, California was making steady, incremental progress in academic achievement but still lagged behind the nation in reading and math proficiency and suffered from persistent achievement gaps by student socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, disability status, and English proficiency. For example:

• In 2019 only 20% of low-income 4th grade students in California met grade level standards in reading compared to 52% of those not economically disadvantaged. 
• 71% of 8th grade students are not proficient in math with Black and Latinx students faring worse than their white and Asian peers.
• Black and Indigenous students dropped out of high school at a rate twice as high as their white peers in 2018. 

Source: CalMatters and California Department of Education

It’s clear that California had challenges in ensuring high quality education for all even before COVID, but the prolonged impact of distance learning has exacerbated these challenges. Exactly how large of an impact distance learning will have on academic achievement is as of yet unknown. But we have some early indications and projections. 

• McKinsey & Company estimated students could lose three to four months of learning with average remote instructions, and between seven and eleven months with lower quality remote instruction, and that assumed schools reopened in January 2021. 
• One national testing organization reported that the average student in grades 3-8 who took a math assessment in the fall of 2020 scored 5 to 10 percentile points behind students who took the same test last year. But the students most likely to be tested were those attending school in person, or attending schools with enough resources to test their remote learners, meaning the actual picture is much worse.

The pandemic is also widening the gap between those who have access to resources and those who do not. Students from low income households, Black and Latinx students are projected to suffer the largest learning loss. Higher income households are also more likely to be accessing in person instruction - a much higher proportion of private schools are offering some in person learning as compared to public schools. Other families have opted to hire private tutors to support “learning pods” and supplement (or replace) distance learning instruction.

San Francisco has established around 80 community learning hubs to support most vulnerable students.

The pandemic is also disrupting many supports that help vulnerable students stay in school such as strong relationships with caring adults and extracurricular activities. On top of that, the pandemic is placing new burdens on students: in one survey, 40% of girls noted an increase in caregiving responsibilities and the economic impact of the pandemic is requiring some students to get jobs to support their families. High school drop out rates are expected to increase as a result with an additional 2 to 9 percent of high-school students estimated to drop out as a result of the pandemic, its economic impact, and school closures.

Students, particularly those in underserved communities, need a plan to address learning loss. But rather than simply attempt catch up, there is an opportunity to reimagine learning in a way that more equitably meets the diverse needs of California’s student body.

There are many worthy areas of investment! Indeed San Francisco recently launched a vision to bring in an additional $2 billion in philanthropic dollars to its school district to address learning loss and fund long-term plans for a first-class public education. Battery Powered will focus its resources on a few selected interventions where our money can make a difference to students as they return to the classroom.   

High Quality, High Dosage Tutoring. One-on-one or one to small group teaching that supplements students’ classroom time is highly effective in improving performance in both reading and math particularly for K-5th grade students but for students through 12th grade as well. The average effect of quality tutoring programs is equivalent to moving a student at the 35th percentile of achievement to the 50th. Several researchers and institutions have called for scaling tutoring across public schools, and other countries, including the U.K. and the Netherlands are adopting a tutoring model to address COVID-related learning loss. We are interested in organizations that recruit, train, and support tutors in evidence-based models and partner with schools and districts to integrate tutoring into students’ day.

“Private philanthropic dollars can’t sustain this [tutoring] at all through the long run, but it can help get it off the ground.”

Susanna Loeb, Director Annenberg Institute, Brown University

 

Summer Learning Programs. Many programs exist specifically to address the summer learning loss that happens among students, particularly disadvantaged students, every year. Investing in these proven models to ramp up is another intervention we are interested in supporting. Some of these programs, like Breakthrough Collaborative, combine teacher training with summer learning for students to address both the need for increased teacher preparation and learning loss. Others combine family engagement with learning, like Springboard Collaborative and Lincoln’s Oakland Freedom Schools.

Graduation Support. With high school drop out rates expected to increase, there is a population of juniors and seniors who will miss out on a high school diploma without re-engagement strategies. Many of these students need to make a living for their families, so programs that combine paid work or job training with a stipend alongside credit earning will be important. Civicorps is one example. 

Given the disproportionate impact of the pandemic and school closures on students of color, low income communities, English Language Learners and students with special needs, we are most interested in programs that support these most at-need learners.