Problems of remote education, and what reopened schools might look like

LAUSD begins in mid August. What that will look like remains unclear. While school districts across the nation figure out how to transition back to classrooms and when, results are now available on how distance learning has gone so far.

“Distance learning got really low marks from school districts throughout the country. … You had millions of students who are in school districts in states where these entities did not even trust their remote learning programs to issue grades to students,” says Tawnell Hobbs, National Education Reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

She says the issues were mainly about students not being able to get online and/or not having devices to learn at home.

She adds, “Also you had teachers who struggled to teach remotely. They hadn’t really had training. And then you had parents who just could not be there to homeschool their kids because they had either work obligations, and in some cases, they had just multiple kids, and it was just too overwhelming.”

After speaking with LAUSD, Hobbs says no decision has been made yet on how schools will reopen. “They had also said it’s just not as simple as wearing a mask and moving desks farther apart. They want to focus too on testing and contact tracing. LA has kind of been very cautious about how they might return to schools.”

From what she’s heard nationwide, Hobbs says the preference is a mix of in-person and remote learning.