Summer’s the time to address learning loss

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/07/2020 (2243 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN 1900, there were 100,000 horses used as the primary mode of transportation in New York City. The number of cars surpassed the number of horses in 1908. By 1920, the transition from horses to cars was nearly complete.

While the transition in technology for transportation in New York City took about two decades, the technology transition expectations for students, parents and educators, from in-person learning to online learning, was only a matter of weeks due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education system.

Geoffrey Canada, a prominent African-American educator who established the Harlem Children’s Zone, argues that the sudden school closures owing to COVID-19 are unprecedented. “We’ve always worried about poor kids in the summer melt,” he said. “Kids are not academically engaged over the summer. They come to school actually behind.”

Canada adds, “We’ve thrown another three months on top of that. And then on top of that, we’ve thrown teachers, and iPads, with no training, with no best practice, and we’re all trying to figure this thing out, I think it’s an educational disaster right now… plus you have the issue that some kids don’t have internet. They don’t have devices. They don’t have headphones. There may be only two devices for five kids. That’s education malpractice.”

According to Canada, not only has the COVID-19 pandemic created a health and economic crisis, it has produced an education crisis as well: “We can’t be cutting budgets and teachers and not investing in our young people… because if we care about income inequality, we are seeing it develop right in front of our eyes.”

The summer melt referred to by Geoffrey Canada involves the loss of knowledge and academic skills over the summer months, when students are out of school. Research indicates that summer learning loss is experienced more harshly by low-income students; it can result in the equivalent of up to three months of declines in measures of grade-level equivalency, and its effect is cumulative, with lower-income students falling behind their more-affluent peers throughout their high school education.

The evidence on summer learning loss can be used to help understand the likely impact of school closures owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Initiatives to address COVID-19 learning loss will be required. One of the strategies currently underway in Winnipeg’s inner city is what can be described as a “back to the future” effort to address COVID-19 learning loss.

Between 1970 and 2000, the Community Education Development Association (CEDA) and the Winnipeg School Division worked in partnership to operate the Summer Enrichment Program for inner-city students in Grade 1 to 6. The Community School Investigators (CSI) Summer Program, established in 2005 by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Winnipeg, was the successor to the Summer Enrichment Program intended to address the issue of summer learning loss for inner-city elementary school students.

CEDA, a United Way-funded organization, is once again working in partnership with the WSD to establish an in-person Summer Enrichment Program for Grade 7 to 9 students to begin to address the effect of COVID-19 learning loss for older students. The program will operate at various inner-city school sites and will be compliant with the recently announced provincial government public-health orders.

The Summer Enrichment Program is a good example of various sectors of the community working together to support young people who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The provincial and federal governments are providing funding for summer student grants for program staff through their respective Green Team and Canada Summer Jobs Program; the Winnipeg School Division is supplying teachers to co-ordinate each of the school sites; and programming funds will be contributed by the Winnipeg Foundation, along with the government of Canada’s Emergency Community Support Fund, which is administered by United Way Winnipeg.

There will be many challenges faced by schools and educators in the coming months in addressing the impact of COVID-19. Schools cannot be expected to face these challenges alone. The Summer Enrichment Program for Grade 7 to 9 inner-city students is a good example of the authentic partnership collaborations our community will need to embrace in order to meet the learning recovery needs of inner-city students.

Tom Simms is co-director of the Community Education Development Association, a United Way-funded agency that has provided community development services to Winnipeg’s inner city since 1979.