Biding Our Time

Educators are working diligently to provide instruction in-person or remotely with the hopes of returning to our normal pre-COVID 19 routines. It feels like a patchwork effort to make sure we are providing some type of education services to our students while we bide our time waiting for our return to “normal.” Outcomes are not likely to be what we want them to be, but we are providing something…or are we?

In reality, we aren’t providing much of anything as it relates to learning. This is a situation where motion clearly does not equal progress. Motion does not equal achievement. Motion may look like we are teaching, but really, many students are falling farther behind. School ended abruptly about seven months ago in most districts in Texas. Students missed a significant amount of instruction at the end of the year then started summer breaks. In the fall, school started back late for many learners resulting in more instruction time lost. This begs the question: Should we continue to go through the motions to satisfy the requirement to teach children, or would a pause and return with an effective plan be time and money better spent?

For the sake of all students, perhaps we need to revisit our current education situation and gauge how much more student learning we can afford to sacrifice. I don’t mean to suggest there are any easy answers. The best answers cost the most money. But when we are talking about children, isn’t the expenditure worth it? Education delivery today should be multifaceted to meet the needs of a very academically and socioeconomically diverse student body. It should also meet the needs of school faculty and parents, all of whom should have input on what education today should look like.

To continue to default to the “There’s not enough funding for that” argument is a cop out. The money is sufficient in education. The problem is, it is being spent everywhere but on the students or paying teachers better. For example, millions of dollars will be spent on standardized testing in Texas this school year, even though students will not be sufficiently prepared to do well on the exams. What is the point of testing when we know students are not prepared for it?

I hope COVID19 ends in short order. It will be great to have some semblance of normalcy again. But if COVID19 sticks around for a while, I am concerned about the damage being done in education while we are biding our time. The fallout will persist long after COVID19 is history. For many students, the fallout will literally mean the difference between success and failure as adults. Taxpayers will pay a lot now or even more later. How much will someone’s child pay?

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