Getting kids back into classrooms looks more essential than ever

When Illinois schools switched to online learning in March because of COVID-19, plenty of experts predicted the worst.

They warned that remote learning — an entirely new approach to teaching adopted on the fly — would be a poor substitute for in-person classroom instruction.

Now we know: They sure were right.

Data released by the Chicago Public Schools last week reveals that online learning has been a woeful disappointment. The findings are a huge red flag for summer school, which will be online this year for thousands of students who do not complete all their remote lessons this spring.

CPS has attached no policy recommendations to the new findings, but the message is obvious: Every effort must be made, as we first wrote four weeks ago, to safely reopen brick-and-mortar schools in the fall.

Not only in Chicago, but across the state.

If remote learning is falling short of acceptable minimums in Chicago, it’s fair to assume it’s falling far short in other school districts, too.

Kids are no-shows

Just 59% of CPS students, according to the data, are logging in consistently — at least three days a week — to the school district’s online remote learning platform. About a quarter of students, some 58,000, aren’t logging in at all.

Homeless students, and students of color, are less likely than their peers to log in even once a week.

Some students have essentially gone missing. More than 2,000 children have not been reached at all, by anyone at their school, since schools were shuttered by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in mid-March.

One bright spot: 93% of students now have a laptop and WiFi.

With summer school fast approaching, CPS of course has a duty to try and reach the remaining 7%, to the extent possible. Otherwise, “the summer may be wasted,” as School Board President Miguel del Valle said at Wednesday’s Chicago Board of Education meeting,

But let’s face it: The district is up against a problem with no clear solution.

What, realistically, can CPS do to engage tens of thousands of students who have the equipment and means to log on remotely — but are not doing do? As Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade said, the problem “may not be solely based on technology access.”

Maybe a high school student who is missing in action from online learning is working a job to help a newly unemployed parent pay the bills. Maybe a student has parents who are working and unable to supervise his or her at-home schooling. Maybe the parents are simply failing to do their part to make remote learning work.

All the more reason to get students safely back in school, if at all possible, this fall.

We know it will be a daunting task to reopen Illinois schools in September. And we know the first priority of Chicago and the state must be the safety of children, teachers, all other school employees and parents. Nobody can say how great a threat the coronavirus will be in the fall.

But what a price our schoolchildren are paying in the meantime.

Teachers frustrated too

Teachers say they’re also in a real bind. Remote instruction makes it tough for them to do their best job. And, as parents themselves in many cases, they’ve got their own kids’ school lessons to monitor at home.

“We’re stressed out too,” one third-grade teacher told us. “It’s not just the kids who are in these situations.”

At last week’s school board meeting, CEO Janice Jackson said a task force soon will unveil a plan for reopening the schools.

“No one wants to see students back in school more than I do,” Jackson said.

Of this, we have no doubt.

Nobody is happy — certainly not professional educators — when real schooling barely limps along.

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