Virus forced schools online, but many students didn't follow

JULIE WATSON and CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated PressApril 17, 2020,

SAN DIEGO (AP) — During the first week that her San Diego public school was shuttered to slow the spread of the coronavirus, not one of Elise Samaniego's students logged on to her virtual classroom.
Three weeks in, the teacher still hadn’t connected online with roughly two-thirds of the students in her third- and fourth-grade combo class at Paradise Hills Elementary. She fears the pandemic will exact a devastating toll on education in the United States, especially at low-income schools like hers.
“I do have several students below grade level, and this is just going to make it worse," said Samaniego, who has been emailing and calling families to get her 22 students to participate.
Teachers across the country report their attempts at distance learning are failing to reach large numbers of students. Hundreds of thousands of students are still without computers or internet access. Those who do log on have countless distractions: They are babysitting siblings, sharing laptops, lying in bed during lessons. Others log on only to walk away.
为了减缓冠状病毒的传播，Elise Samaniego在圣地亚哥的公立学校被关闭的第一周，没有一个学生登录她的虚拟教室。三周过去了，在天堂山小学(Paradise Hills Elementary)的三、四年级综合班中，约有三分之二的学生没有上网。她担心流感大流行会对美国的教育造成毁灭性的打击，尤其是像她这样的低收入学校。我确实有几个成绩低于年级水平的学生，这只会让情况变得更糟，”萨马尼戈说，她一直在给家人发邮件和打电话，让她的22名学生参与进来。全国各地的教师报告说，他们尝试的远程教育未能惠及大量学生。成千上万的学生仍然没有电脑或互联网接入。那些登录的人有无数的干扰:他们是照看孩子的兄弟姐妹，共用笔记本电脑，上课时躺在床上。另一些人登录后就离开了。
With schools closed for the rest of the year in at least 23 states, the uneven progress with remote learning is raising concerns that those who already were struggling will be left further behind.
“The pandemic is an educational equity crisis for vulnerable students who were too often underserved by our education system in ‘normal’ times,” said Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-New York.
Not all schools are struggling. Those accustomed to technology transitioned smoothly. Derek Blunt, a math teacher at Making Community Connections Charter School in Keene, New Hampshire, said students are issued iPads in normal times and regularly use Google Classroom and other platforms. A week after the school closed, nearly all of his 65 students were doing their work.
In contrast, students at Samaniego's school faced several hurdles before learning could begin. Some only had internet access through their parents' phones.
至少有23个州的学校在今年剩下的时间里停课，远程教育的不均衡进展引发了人们的担忧，他们担心那些已经在苦苦挣扎的学生将进一步落后。教育信托-纽约的执行董事Ian Rosenblum说:“在正常时期，我们的教育系统常常没有为弱势学生提供足够的服务，而这次大流行对他们来说是一场教育公平危机。”并不是所有的学校都在苦苦挣扎。那些习惯了技术的人过渡顺利。德里克·布朗特(Derek Blunt)是新罕布什尔州基恩市(Keene)“建立社区联系”特许学校(Making Community Connections Charter School)的数学老师。学校关闭一周后，他的65名学生几乎都在做作业。相比之下，Samaniego学校的学生在开始学习之前面临着几个障碍。有些人只能通过父母的手机上网。
“I can’t tell them even where to start," she said. "Do you have a computer? That's step 1. Then you have to download Chrome. That’s step 2."
In New York City, the nation's largest school district, tens of thousands of tablets and laptops have been lent to students, and the plan is for everyone to have a device by the end of April. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the district was still gathering data, but “there’s clearly an issue with attendance.”
That is true in many places.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s seco