Education Week - September 1, 2021 - 14

QUALITY COUNTS 2021: Grading the States
Households With School-Age Kids
See Continued Educational Hurdles
As Pandemic Drags On
About This Analysis
The EdWeek Research Center analyzed data
from the April 14-26, 2021, U.S. Census Bureau
Household Pulse Survey. The analysis gauges
internet and device access for educational
purposes, real-time interaction between
students and teachers, postsecondary
disruptions, and other effects of the pandemic.
For data regarding the availability of the
internet for academic purposes, the Research
Center compared results with an earlier survey
fielded in April/May 2020. More information
on the Household Pulse Survey is available at:
https://www.census.gov/data
By Alex Harwin & Sterling C. Lloyd
Regular, live teacher interaction. Schoolprovided
access to Wi-Fi crucial for learning
at home. A clear path forward after high
school as students move beyond K-12.
Those all remained a challenge for many
families of school-age children due to the
COVID-19 pandemic based on household
surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau
toward the end of the most recent school
year-important context for school leaders
welcoming those students back amid
continued upheaval.
The EdWeek Research Center's analysis
of the U.S. Census Bureau's Household
Pulse data spotlights the pandemic's continued
impact on at-home factors tied to
students' education, even as some states
have maintained a status quo or even posted
improvements in critical areas, including
ed-tech, teacher interactions, and postsecondary
plans. This analysis is based on surveys
conducted April 14 through April 26,
at a time when students had not yet left for
the summer break, even in some states with
early closing dates.
A closer look at the data illustrates how
the pandemic affected factors significant
to the educational outcomes of students
nationwide.
How often do you see your
teacher?
The Census data show that even after a
year of the pandemic, not all students received
consistent, daily guidance from teachers.
Specifically, the survey asked households
how many days students had real-time, nonprerecorded
virtual or in-person contact with
their teachers in the previous week. Nationally,
35 percent said they had not had at least
four days of interaction.
But the numbers varied widely by state.
At least three-fourths of households with
students in Kansas, Montana, Louisiana,
Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho,
and Iowa documented having four or more
days of interaction with their teachers.
Families with students that reported less
often interacting with their teachers for four
or more days included New York (51 percent),
Washington (51 percent), Hawaii
(45 percent), and Delaware (35 percent ).
" Unfortunately, that doesn't surprise
me, " Robin Lake, director of the Center
on Reinventing Public Education, which
has been following the pandemic's impact
on schooling, said of the Census finding
that a third or more of households experienced
what they saw as less than everyday
interaction with teachers. " If you ran
those numbers [based on] low-income
students of color, students with disabilities,
I'd bet you'd see probably higher
numbers. "
In part, that may be a reflection of how
families saw the actual instruction their
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 1, 2021 | www.edweek.org
" When [students] are remote, that's the
big question: What's happening in those situations? "
Kaufman said. " And that's where
we don't have a lot of great data, but we do
know that kids that were remote, according
to teachers, got less instructional time. "
COVID continues to shake the
postsecondary landscape
The Census survey found that the pandemic's
impact isn't limited to the daily routine
of elementary and secondary schooling.
That's evident in the data showing that
two-thirds of households nationwide in
which a member was enrolled or planned
to enroll in postsecondary courses had to
change those plans.
(The survey captured both those under
18 and any older members of the household
who might have postsecondary plans.)
Respondents cited changes in plans to
take classes this fall, canceled classes,
changes in the learning format, and decisions
to take fewer or more classes, change
a major, or even go to another institution.
There was some variation in terms of college
plans needing to change based on the
regional location of the student.
Plans changed the most in the Northeast
(71 percent), followed by the Western region
of the country (68 percent) and the Midwest
(67 percent), with the South having the least
number of students changing their posthigh
school plans at 62 percent.
South Carolina was where changes to
postsecondary plans were least common at
children were getting at the time of the
survey, toward the end of the second pandemic-disrupted
school year.
" I think it's really important for people to
understand that when schools say they're
'open,' you need to look underneath the
hood and understand what that really
means in terms of student-teacher interactions, "
Lake said.
Julia Kaufman, a senior policy researcher
at RAND Corporation who co-wrote a report
on the inequities of virtual learning,
said the responses may also reflect levels of
in-school versus remote learning in certain
states and regions.
about 50 percent, followed by Mississippi at
51 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, 83 percent
of households from Maine said students'
postsecondary plans changed, followed
by Rhode Island at 79 percent and
Connecticut at 78 percent.
That all aligns pretty well with an analysis
done by the Community College Research
Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The center found " a lot of households
reporting changes in plans which
appeared most often to be canceling plans
altogether to attend school, " said Director
Thomas Brock.
The question is, what will happen going
forward, given the continued twists and
turns in the pandemic.
" I was feeling pretty optimistic a couple
of months ago with ... vaccinations and all
the rest, " said Brock. " And then it seems
like this summer, with the Delta variant,
things are a little bit uncertain again. I do
still think there will be at least a modest
improvement from the worst of the pandemic
in the community college sector. "
The ed-tech picture shows both
bright spots and soft spots
During the April survey period, the number
of households with students nationally
who had access to the internet for academic
purposes increased by 7 percentage points
from April 2020, going from 74 percent to
81 percent.
The picture was even better in some
places. Nine out of 10 school-aged children
in a household always had access to computers
in the District of Columbia and in
seven states: Connecticut, Delaware, North
Dakota, Virginia, Maryland, Oregon, and
Washington.
But 70 percent or less of students from
Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and South
Dakota always reported having access.
North Dakota stood out as both improving
and being ahead of the pack in terms
of internet access. In the spring of 2020,
83 percent of households with K-12 students
indicated their children always had internet
access for educational purposes, trailing
only Rhode Island.
But while most students nationally had
access to the internet, that access wasn't
free: Of those households where children,
to some degree or another, had internet
access, 96 percent said that they got their
internet paid for by someone in the household
or family, rather than by the school or
district.
Note: The Census Bureau's Household Pulse
Survey measures the pandemic's economic
and social impact on families nationwide. The
first wave of this experimental data source was
initiated by the Census in April of 2020. Currently,
the Census plans to collect the latest
wave of data until Oct. 11 of this year.
https://www.census.gov/data http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - September 1, 2021

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