What are schools doing for the fall? It depends where you look
While talking about race in schools, Matt Yglesias makes a point (paywall) that is too often overlooked regarding the size of the education system in the United States:
“This is a really big country. There are over 100,000 K-12 schools in the United States. If you assume optimistically that in any given year, one out of every 100 teachers say or do anything racist at any school in the United States, that still leaves you with 1,000 racist teacher incidents per year. You could do a dozen ‘racist teacher’ stories per week and still be leaving racist teachers on the table. But at the same time, some other outlet could be doing 1,000 ‘woke administrator out of control’ stories per week. And we’ll all be clicking and sharing and arguing about those stories nonstop.”
(He actually messes up his math, because there are about 3.5 million teachers in the U.S. But that mistake, if corrected, would actually strengthen his point that you can use anecdotes to make a wide variety of points that may or may not be backed by data.)
Let’s use that as a jumping off point to address the question “what’s the latest with parents, students, and school boards choosing online learning for fall 2021?”
Answer #1: Online enrollments are going crazy!
Last school year, NVLA had approximately 450 full-time students, but as of August 6, they had accepted over 4,200 full-time distance learning students, and they continue to accept hundreds of new students daily. (Paraphrased from original for clarity.)
That’s nearly a 10x increase. Surely it must be indicative of broader patterns, right?
Answer #2: Eh, not so much.
From St. Paul district looks to make online school an option for all students this fall:
St. Paul announced in January that it would create an online high school, opening this fall, with as many as 450 students. So far, Gothard said, only around 50 have enrolled.
“Kids want to be back in school,” he said.
This despite the fact that “23 percent of parents responding to a district survey [in July] said they were “very interested” in enrolling their children in virtual learning this school year, according to research director Stacey Gray Akyea.”
Answer #3: In some districts, it’s complicated
From Some Henderson County parents left scrambling after board suspends virtual learning:
“Some Henderson County parents are scrambling to find other learning options for their children after the Henderson County Board of Public Education temporarily suspended the district's virtual learning option.
"We are very much committed to face-to-face instruction," said Wendy Frye, assistant superintendent for Instructional Services at HCPS.
Also:
“Another reason for the suspension was that the district just didn't have enough staff interested in teaching virtually. School officials said Monday only three teachers were interested, while 380 students had signed up for the program.”
It appears that the issue in this district isn’t a lack of student interest, it’s a lack of teacher interest.
The larger point
Given how big and messy the US K-12 system is, and how long it often takes to find research based on surveys or other data, it’s not unusual for many (including us) to seek patterns in anecdotes.
But with all the news stories bouncing around right now about new school closings, mask requirements, etc., it’s a good time to remember that we’re not going to have a good sense for the situation nationally for at least a few more weeks, and quite possible much longer.
How hard did I have to look to find the stories to make the point of this post? Not very. They all came to me in a single daily Google news alert, on August 11.