Charles
Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[Permission
to reproduce if authorship is acknowledged]
COVID-19 has parents
concerned about the safety of their children and their educational welfare. Parents
know that they don’t have the skills to teach their children. COVID-19 helps
them to appreciate that managing the learning of one child is challenging, that
teachers’
work is complex.
While parents are
clearly anxious about ‘continuity
of learning’ during COVID-19, anecdotal evidence indicates that their
expectations are less demanding than would be the case if schools were closed because
of a labour dispute. They are, nonetheless, concerned about the long-term
impact of the loss of instructional time on their child’s learning.
That concern is
well placed. My hunch is that schools in British Columbia may not reopen until September
2020 and possibly later than that. I explicitly use the term hunch because it
is no more than a guess or gut feeling. Regardless of the duration of school closure,
parents are justified in their worry about the time lost in school.
Concern about lost
learning time is long-standing, dating to the early 1900s. Although it is
sometimes called summer learning loss or summer learning gap, I prefer the term
lost learning time because there is no reason to believe that lost
instructional time does not have an impact even if it occurs at other times of
the year.
The study of lost
learning time is complex, but the accumulated evidence vindicates parental
concern. Studies[1]
indicate that “summer learning loss” is roughly equivalent to about one month
of schooling. Losses are greater for mathematics than for reading, likely because
students read during the summer, but are less engaged in mathematics. Losses
are projected to be larger for older than younger students. Losses are also greater
for less advantaged students than for more advantaged students, likely because of
the opportunities afforded the former. According to some research, the losses have
“lasting consequences.” [2]
Summer learning
loss is often attributed to fewer opportunities to use and practice what
student have learned during the year. Notwithstanding the efforts of teachers
during COVID-19 some instructional time will be lost and the opportunities to
practice diminished despite the efforts that teachers are making to ensure continuity
of instruction during COVID-19.
At this point, ‘continuity
of learning’ appears to differ from school board to school board, school to
school and teacher to teacher. Those differences are likely to manifest
themselves in what and how students learn during the pandemic. Children in more
advantaged families are less likely to be affected negatively than students in
less advantaged families because of their access to resources such as personal
computers and access to the Internet.
There are three
categories of students for whom lost learning time is most detrimental.
Students for whom English is a second language will not have the systematic
exposure to the language they are trying to learn. Special needs students will
not benefit from the teaching and learning strategies imparted by specialists,
and by teachers often working with outside agencies. Low-income students will
not have the learning time they need to maintain progress with their peers.
If schools were
able to resume during July and August, some of the negative impact of lost
instructional and learning time because of COVID-19 might be mitigated. That’s
still a big ‘if’ at this point. Moreover, if medical health officials believe
that COVID-19 will abate a bit during the warm, summer months and then reoccur
in the Fall (and there is no ‘summertime school’), lost learning time would
likely have a greater impact.
Restarting schools
in July or even August would require significant effort for everyone (parents, teachers,
educational assistants, administrators, support staff, school board officials,
and of course, students). But a summer restart might just be a welcome and
beneficial opportunity.
[1]
Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996).
The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and
meta‐analytic review. Review of Educational Research, 66, 227–268; Burkam, D.
T., Ready, D. D., Lee, V. E., & LoGerfo, L. F. (2004). Social‐class differences
in summer learning between kindergarten and first grade: Model specification
and estimation. Sociology of Education, 77, 1–31; Entwisle, D. R., Alexander,
K. L., & Olson, L. S. (2001). Keep the faucet flowing: Summer learning and
home environment. American Educator, 25(3), 10–15.
[2]
Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., & Olson, L. S. (2007). Lasting
consequences of the summer learning gap. American Sociological Review, 72,
167–180.