Education Week - July 14, 2021 - 21

Why Are We
Turning Our Backs
On Remote Learning?
R
emote learning has
moved to the top of the
school agenda with a
vengeance since March
of last year. Without
it, tens of millions of
American students
would have been without formal instruction
during the pandemic. It's a big topic moving
forward as we think about what schools will
look like come September.
A few policymakers are big fans. Take,
for example, Eric Adams during his run to
become New York City's next mayor. This
February, the former policeman opined at a
meeting of the Citizens Budget Commission,
" If you do a full-year school year by using the
new technology of remote learning, you don't
need children to be in a school building with a
number of teachers. It's just the opposite. You
could have one great teacher that's in one of
our specialized high schools to teach three to
400 students. "
But Adams and those who share his view
are pushing upstream against a growing
consensus that remote learning contributes
to " learning loss " and to teacher burnout,
while being detrimental to student learning.
Increasingly, school districts, as well as
state leaders and elected officials, lean
toward eliminating remote learning as
an educational option for students come
September-the current New York City
mayor, Bill de Blasio, among them.
Extreme pro- and anti-positions are
misbegotten. Advocates need to take care.
Ham-fisted mandates banning or requiring
remote learning are likely to throw the baby
out with the bath water.
This entire discussion lacks the proper
consideration of the overall benefits and
drawbacks of remote learning.
Remote learning has been used in
educational settings for many years. There
are traditional and virtual schools across
the country that do amazing work with their
students in fully virtual and hybrid settings.
There are also, to be clear, fly-by-night
e-operators consuming public dollars with
very little public benefit to show for it.
But why are people so interested in
removing or banning remote learning
from the options we can offer students?
Like so many things these days, remote
learning feels like a politically charged
topic. That's an unfortunate reality given
the benefits that some students find in
remote settings.
Without remote learning this past
year, schooling options for students in
Joliet Public Schools District 86-which
I lead-would have been embarrassingly
threadbare. We were largely fully remote
for most of the year. We were not fully oneto-one
with our devices when the pandemic
first shut down schools in March 2020.
However, by the middle of May that same
year, nearly every student had a device for
instruction. The remaining students were
provided a device in time to start the 202021
school year in August.
We remained fully remote at the
beginning of the school year based on our
local COVID-19 realities. As we monitored
the data, it was necessary for us to remain
fully remote until February. We invited
small groups of special education students
to return to their school buildings one or two
days each week. However, many parents
declined this opportunity. We invited groups
of general education students to return to
their school buildings one or two days each
week in March. Only about 15 percent of
our total student population participated
in person, while the remainder continued
fully remote. By the end of the year, we
had increased our percentage of in-person
students to approximately 25 percent.
Mandated in-person state assessments
also added to the dilemma of planning
for instruction in the spring. Thirtyfive
percent of our English-language
learners participated in their mandated
assessment, and approximately 42 percent
of students in grades 3-8 participated
in the state-mandated assessments.
"
Ham-fisted
mandates
banning or
requiring
remote learning
are likely to
throw the baby
out with the
bath water.
Unfortunately, the time spent ensuring
mandated assessments were managed and
monitored appropriately took time away
from instruction-for students attending in
person and those still fully remote.
Was everyone successful in our fully virtual
learning environment? No. Some students
thrived while others struggled. As an
educator, I realize that not every instructional
model or strategy works for every student.
Therefore, I want options in my toolbox so
that I can assist students to be successful.
As a district superintendent, it is essential
that I have options to offer families that help
place their children in the best learning
environments for them. Allowing parents
a choice among fully online, hybrid, and
in-person learning is the right thing to do as
we move into a postpandemic world. Why
would we go backward when we can augment
our options for students to better ensure their
success?
There have been several lessons learned
during the past terrible 16 months. The
public's eyes have been opened about how
difficult it is to provide a quality education to
diverse student populations. We've gained
some hard-won insights into the challenges
and benefits associated with different
approaches to helping students succeed.
We've doubtless made mistakes, but using
these experiences as a lever for change offers
a strategic way forward.
Let's be honest. As Gloria LadsonBillings,
a retired tenured faculty member
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and a former president of the American
Educational Research Association, likes to
point out, we don't really want to return to
normal because " normal is the place where
the problems were. " We need a new vision
that offers parents and students new options.
Returning to traditional school settings that
look exactly the way they were before would
be a waste of everything we've learned since
COVID-19 shut our school buildings down.
It is time for school leaders to stand up and
insist that we cannot let the system revert
to the status quo ante. It is time for us to
stand up for our students and their families
by providing them with as many options as
we can so that they can be as successful as
they want to be and we want them to be. It
is time, too, that we stand up for our staff by
providing them with all the resources needed
to meet the needs of their students.
Above all, it is time my colleagues leading
districts large and small across the country
work to ensure that every single student in
our schools has the learning environment
that best fits their individual learning styles.
That's how to get rid of the bath water while
protecting the baby. 
By Theresa Rouse
ROUSE is the superintendent of
Joliet Public Schools District 86,
in Illinois, which serves nearly
10,500 P-8 students, 91 percent
of whom are students of color
with universal access to free and
reduced-price meals. A member
of the National Superintendents
Roundtable steering committee,
Rouse and its executive director,
James Harvey, developed the
forthcoming series " Leadership
Lessons From the Kitchen Table "
in partnership with Education
Week Opinion.
EDUCATION WEEK | July 14, 2021 | www.edweek.org/opinion | 21
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Education Week - July 14, 2021

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