by James A. Bacon
The Northam administration expects Virginia to receive 480,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, and has announced it will follow federal guidelines for distributing the vaccine first to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. Explained Virginia State Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver Friday: “We will focus initially on the groups that have been most at risk for severe illness from COVID-19 infections and those whose work puts them at greatest risk of contracting COVID-19 infections.”
Those sounds like reasonable priorities, and I expect most Virginians will share them. The interesting question is whom to prioritize next. There is a growing body of thought, which I share, that the vaccine should be distributed to K-12 school teachers and essential staff.
COVID-19 has put Virginia’s public school system in meltdown mode. Because many teachers don’t feel safe teaching classes in-person, dozens of districts have adopted online or hybrid arrangements that don’t work for many students. Tens of thousands of students are falling dramatically behind.
To rescue Virginia from the edupocalypse, which will have dire consequences for society far beyond the pandemic, the Northam administration should make it a priority to get teachers back in school so we can get students back in school.
In the City of Richmond public schools Superintendent Jason Kamras is recommending that the district remain virtual for the spring 2021 semester. He cites a survey, which received 5,803 responses from Richmond families, in which 63% of families and 80% of teachers said they would not be comfortable returning to in-person learning, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The fear of COVID-19 is widespread. Teachers fretting over exposure to the virus compelled Fairfax County schools to go all-virtual. Other districts oscillate between fear for teacher/student safety and worries that students are falling behind. In news headlines today, Virginia Beach public schools indicate that they may return to all-virtual learning, while Norfolk schools are considering a reopening plan that might return some students and teachers to in-person classrooms sooner than thought.
Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that distance learning is a disaster for many. Fairfax County schools are handing out more F’s, as Bacon’s Rebellion noted a few days ago. Now we read that the Arlington County public school system is reporting a sharp drop in the number of children grasping fundamental reading skills.
The statewide Phonological Awareness Literacy (PAL) screening tests foundational reading skills. The Arlington County report shows that whites and Asians have been barely affected this fall but that black, Hispanic and English-learning students have seen marked declines.
About one in five black students and two in five Hispanic students failed the test, a precipitous drop from the previous year, as can be seen in the graph above. Only one in ten Asian and white students in Arlington failed the test, little changed from the previous year.
PALS, a program administered by the University of Virginia, lists the following skills expected for grades 1-3:
ENTRY LEVEL: Word Knowledge
Spelling Inventory
LEVEL A: Oral Reading in Context
LEVEL B: Alphabetics
LEVEL C: Phonemic Awareness
If students fail to grasp these concepts, they will find it difficult to keep up with reading as they advance into higher grades, especially if they are socially promoted, as seems to be a widespread practice today. Failure begets frustration, loss of self esteem, and more failure in future years. If Arlington results are typical of those in other school districts adopting distance learning, it is tragically predictable that the gap between Asian/white and black/Hispanic academic performance will fall further behind in the years ahead.
It is critically important that Virginia public schools reopen for in-person learning as soon as possible. It may be too late to ameliorate harm already done, but we can hope to stop inflicting more damage. As a matter of political reality in the larger districts, teachers must feel safe before we reopen schools. If the Northam administration is serious about closing the racial gap in education, it must put teachers near the front of the line to get the vaccine.
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