Education leader: Pandemic means once-a-century hit for NC students
State schools official predicts worst retention rate in a century as learning losses mount during the coronavirus pandemic.
Posted — UpdatedThe learning hit from the coronavirus pandemic, Department of Public Instruction Deputy Superintendent David Stegall said, will be both widespread and uneven, affecting students from poor and rural families more than others, in part due to broadband internet availability.
“We are creating a greater divide than we have ever had," Stegall told lawmakers gathered for an education oversight committee meeting. "In the current environment, it will continue to grow.”
State Board of Education Chairman Eric Davis echoed Stegall's concern and called, as the state comes out of the pandemic, for "new ways of thinking" and a statewide strategy for student improvement.
"The last time our state faced such a challenge was in the Great Depression," said Davis, who also spoke to lawmakers Tuesday.
Stegall presented lawmakers gathered in Raleigh with statistics to answer questions they had put to the state Department of Public Instruction:
- Only 81 percent of students enrolled in virtual classes are "regularly attending," meaning they participate at least four days a week. In a regular school year, this would be well above 90 percent.
- On average, virtual-only students get four hours of "synchronous" learning time each school day, meaning the teacher is working with them through the computer. On "asynchronous" days, a teacher assigns work but doesn't necessarily meet with students.
- In-person students get 5.5 to six hours a day of synchronous learning.
- Roughly 53 percent of students who typically qualify for free or reduced-price lunch regularly receive meals. Parents of virtual learners can pre-order meals for their children and pick them up.
- Enrollment is down about 51,500 students compared with this time last year, driven in part by a “drastic decrease” in people signing up for kindergarten. That indicates many parents chose to delay kindergarten for a year, Stegall said.
- 0.7 percent of students enrolled last year are unaccounted for this year. Stegall said most of these are high schoolers. State officials reach out to family, friends and neighbors for an explanation, and he gave an example: Neighbors of two students said they moved to another city to take jobs, but officials haven't been able to confirm that. “In some ways," Stegall said, "I’m relieved it’s not higher than it is.”
- Just under 60 percent of students are learning in person, either full time or on a rotation with some virtual classes. Nearly 430,000 students are getting online-only education.
Stegall predicted more students will be held back after this year than in the last century, and no one in the meeting disagreed. He also predicted a significant drop in graduation rates.
Lawmakers pressed Stegall and other state education officials to focus on these problems coming down the pipe and their long-term ramifications. House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Craig Horn, R-Union, reminded other legislators that the General Assembly has pushed significant control down to local systems.
"How do you have the plan when it’s all local control?" said Horn, who's leaving the General Assembly after this year, having left his seat for an unsuccessful run as state superintendent of public instruction.
"The problems will magnify over the coming months," Horn said. "They won’t get any smaller."
"This has been a disaster for education," he said.
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