{"id":582069,"date":"2021-12-21T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?post_type=article&p=582069"},"modified":"2021-12-30T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T18:37:19","slug":"best-education-articles-2021-pandemic-schools-learning-recovery-crt","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/best-education-articles-2021-pandemic-schools-learning-recovery-crt\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Education Articles of 2021: Our 21 Most Shared Stories This Year About Students, Learning Recovery, Mental Health, School Politics & More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It feels as if schools have now entered a third phase of the pandemic filled with child vaccines, adult boosters, rolling quarantines and learning recovery efforts \u2014 and of course mounting questions about the infectious new Omicron variant. If the 2019 school year was defined by emergency measures and campus closures, and the 2020 school year was about triaging the best possible classroom plans for unvaccinated school populations, the 2021 school year has thus far been one steeped in hope and urgency: Hope that vaccines will bring an end to the global health emergency and allow classrooms to safely return to normal, and urgency surrounding the students who have been pushed off track over the past 20 months \u2014 from core skills to key milestones to college and career goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our most widely circulated education coverage this year focused largely on how school is still looking a whole lot different today than it did two years ago, how educators and policymakers are both recognizing the need for urgent learning recovery efforts, and how emerging political fights over schools and curriculum are straining an already stretched system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were our 21 most shared and debated articles of 2021:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exclusive Data: An Inside Look at the Spy Tech That Followed Kids Home for Remote Learning \u2014 and Now Won\u2019t Leave<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Investigation:<\/strong> When the pandemic forced Minneapolis students into remote learning, district officials partnered with Gaggle, a digital surveillance company that uses artificial intelligence and a team of content moderators to track the online behaviors of millions of kids across the U.S. every day. Now, public records obtained by The 74 offer an unprecedented look<\/a> at how the Minneapolis school district deployed a controversial security tool that saw rapid national growth during the pandemic but carries significant civil rights and privacy concerns. The data highlight how Gaggle puts children under relentless digital surveillance long after classes end for the day. In Minneapolis, officials say the tool helps identify youth at risk of suicide. But some worry that rummaging through students’ personal files and conversations on their school-issued Google and Microsoft accounts could backfire. Read Mark Keierleber\u2019s full report<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Read Our Previous Coverage:<\/strong> \u2018Don\u2019t get Gaggled\u2019 \u2014 Minneapolis school district spends big on student surveillance tool, raising ire after terminating its police contract (Read more<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With Up to 9 Grade Levels Per Class, Can Schools Handle the Fallout From COVID\u2019s K-Shaped Recession?<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Learning Loss: <\/strong>Wealthy newcomers from expensive cities like New York and San Francisco propelled housing prices in Austin, Texas, into the stratosphere in 2020, pushing out families of modest means and sending demographic shockwaves through the area\u2019s schools. It\u2019s just one manifestation of the pandemic\u2019s K-shaped recession, a downturn barely felt by the affluent people at the top of the K but devastating to the people at the bottom. As schools prepared to reopen this past fall, research was showing that COVID had put the most disadvantaged students even further behind<\/a> while propelling privileged children ahead and hollowing out the middle. Meaning the span of academic mastery in individual classrooms \u2014 seven grade levels in \u201cnormal\u201d times \u2014 had widened even further, to as many as nine grade levels. In this chapter of The 74\u2019s series examining the link between the pandemic\u2019s economic turmoil and challenges in classrooms, Beth Hawkins takes you inside an Austin school that\u2019s poised to meet the needs of its \u201cbookend students\u201d \u2014 the kids furthest ahead and behind \u2014 and may be a model for addressing the COVID classroom crisis. Read our full dispatch from Texas<\/a> \u2014 and see other chapters from our K-shaped report: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Early Education:<\/strong> D.C.\u2019s missing students and the rush to avert a COVID classroom crisis (Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 School Funding:<\/strong> Will fallout from COVID\u2019s K-shaped recession finally fix Delaware\u2019s Jim Crow-era school funding rules? (Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Prepared For the Crisis: <\/strong>Recession, recovery & robotics \u2014 Can CTE and Reno\u2019s reinvented schools avert the COVID classroom crisis? (Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Rebuilding Towards Equity: <\/strong>Trailblazing leader was hired to fix Colorado Springs schools. Will doubling down on his reforms avert crisis? (Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 74 Explains: <\/strong>WATCH \u2014 How COVID\u2019s K-shaped recession could widen achievement gaps: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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