Education During a Pandemic: California Public Schools and Technology

Wellesley Law Journal

Due to school closures in California, approximately 685 school districts and 1,131 charter schools are learning remotely this year (Lambert 2020). As remote and hybrid learning becomes the norm, education equity gaps are becoming increasingly apparent. In March, 20% of California students did not have home internet access (Johnson 2020). Low-income, Black, and Hispanic students are put at a disadvantage. Predictions show that “Black students may fall behind by 10.3 months, Hispanic students by 9.2 months, and low-income students by more than a year. We estimate that this would exacerbate existing achievement gaps by 15 to 20 percent” (Dorn 2020). The emotional learning and mental wellbeing of students is also being neglected during the pandemic. A Brown University study showed that 57% of students rely on mental health services provided through their school (Golberstein 2020). This pandemic has caused unprecedented education challenges for disadvantaged students. These challenges give us an opportunity to make education more accessible to students with varying academic and emotional needs. This is an opportunity to invest in a strong California public school technology system. To achieve this outcome, I argue that the California Department of Education should partner with local libraries across the state, invest in new teaching strategies, and provide telemental health services for students.

California public schools can gain from partnering with public libraries to offer internet access, computer and book use, and a quiet learning environment. Libraries across the state provide 24.1 million ‘uses per year’ through public internet computers. The state’s 1,128 libraries spend over $150.1 million on improving their physical and digital collections (California Library Statistics FY 2018-2019). Libraries need to be seen as education hubs. The PEW Research Center reports that “31% of those living in homes whose annual incomes are $30,000 or less have used… online resources at the library” (Horrigan 2015). Free, public online resources have gained importance during COVID-19. The state can provide guidelines for timings and social distancing guidelines each time a student enters a public library, but it is important that the school districts themselves work with public library leadership to identify specific needs. For example, a school district in Wisconsin identified the need to educate students on how to navigate new technologies. The public library was able to provide ‘technology help days’ to fill this gap (Duxter 2020). To manage the predicted 12 week delay in laptop and hotspot distribution, California’s public libraries should step in to give students the resources they need to learn.

The state of California can increase the effectiveness of remote learning by understanding the advantages and disadvantages of education technology. According to J-PAL’s Education Technology Evidence Review Research, online classes and the expansion of technology in classrooms do not show significant improvements in education, but computer-assisted learning can. J-PAL analyzed thirty studies on computer-assisted learning and twenty of those had positive, significant impacts for students. Computer-assisted learning is more targeted. This targeted learning can help teachers teach more effectively. Sanjay Sarma, MIT’s vice president for open learning, provides insight into some teaching strategies that may help California teachers. Based on magnetic resonance images or MRIs studied by Sarma, the most important teaching techniques are repetition and ‘reloading’. Repetition can be created through homework, mini quizzes, and Zoom recording replays. ‘Reloading’ can occur during office hours, a time when teachers can ask critical thinking questions that may throw a student off so that they must ‘reload’ past knowledge to apply it to a new circumstance (Chandler 2020). This research builds upon the idea that student feedback and meta-cognitive learning, a student’s ability to learn actively, are important (The Economist 2016). Using these models, teachers can reinforce concepts virtually and through smaller assignments while also opening office hours for students who need additional support.

Mental health and academic achievement are linked. We know that “adolescents in racial and ethnic minority groups, with lower family income, or with public health insurance were disproportionately likely to receive mental health services exclusively from school settings. (Golberstein 2020). With school closures, California’s school-based health centers cannot serve students. Therefore, we must invest in telemental health. Telemental health has proven to be as effective as in person mental health services. During COVID-19, 18% of Americans report experiencing nervousness or anxiety in the past week. Usually, when there is not a global pandemic, that percentage is about 9%. Data regarding the mental health of young children has not been widely published. However, the PEW Research Center provides insights on how younger and low income Americans are experiencing higher psychological distress at this time (Keeter 2020). Creating a telemental health infrastructure now can bring better learning outcomes for students with varying emotional needs.

Remote learning during COVID-19 has exacerbated current inequities in education. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Department of Education has taken steps to increase access to technology by partnering with private entities to provide internet hotspots and devices. California can now lead the way in creating sustainable technology infrastructure that supports students during the pandemic and provides supplemental support beyond the pandemic. Libraries and remote teaching strategies are useful for building cognitive

skills outside a physical classroom. Telemental health provides non-cognitive support so that students can better focus on school. Building this technology infrastructure can help bridge education gaps that occur outside of the classroom.

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