IT’S JUNE 2021 and, finally, most children have returned to full-time in-person school. Teachers are reconnecting with students whose experiences over the last 16 months vary widely: a student who lost a parent to COVID-19, another whose family has been stressed by job loss, food insecurity, and mental health challenges, another who is reeling from […]
Joan Wasser Gish
Posted inEducation
3 priorities for schools in the COVID-19 era
REOPENING SCHOOLS PRESENTS a lot of unknowns. Budgets, class sizes, and health protocols are up in the air. But one matter is settled: Whether education happens in person or online, students’ academic learning depends in large measure on their physical and social-emotional wellbeing. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, during this past decade of relative economic prosperity, […]
Posted inEducation
An early education system for a post-pandemic world
WHEN FAMILIES WITH children emerge from home or fall back from the frontlines, the world will be very different. Parents looking for work or trying to keep our jobs will confront a decimated economy, and we will find fewer early education or after school programs to help care for and nurture our kids. Before the […]
Posted inEducation
We need a holistic approach to improving student outcomes
IF MASSACHUSETTS IS committed to equal educational opportunity for all, the next phase of education reform must acknowledge that schools cannot close achievement gaps without a systemic approach to addressing the out-of-school disadvantages that impact students’ academic learning. Factors outside of school more powerfully predict outcomes than any factor in schools. The current education reform […]