Watching the Education Divide Widen

This Forbes piece by Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform (CER) wasn’t the feel good Monday morning article I was looking for. Then again, a sobering reminder of what’s happening in our education system is something we should all be paying attention to every day.

While it certainly feels as though there are too many moving parts for us to follow as we step into the second full school year post the Covid-19 pandemic, at this point it’s clear that one trend that’s not likely to reverse is a heightened focus from parents on how they can step in to support their children’s education. While this is indeed a positive trend, and one that places more emphasis on ensuring that educators have the tools they need to engage with parents in a two-way manner, it also creates more pressures that many students and families won’t be able to keep up with.

The emergence of virtual online or hybrid schools works fine for the families that can afford this option and make it work with kids studying at home, but for millions this won’t be an option. We’ve got to keep pushing to enable these digital learning experiences to exist regardless of a family’s income, mobile phone data plan, or home broadband connection. This is the trend that we need to pay attention to most closely in the months and years ahead.