A recently announced nationwide survey will look at the effect the coronavirus pandemic has had on primary and secondary education.
The 2021 National Assessment of Educational Progress will look a bit different this year. Instead of educational success, it will ask questions about instruction mode, hours of live instruction, access in various demographics, and attendance trends in 4th and 8th grade.
Brian Gutman, Director of External Relations with The Education Trust-Midwest, said the survey is one step in the right direction.
“In a typical year the NAEP is assessing students across the country so that we can understand how students in Michigan are performing compared to students in other states. That’s not going to happen this year,” he said. “The survey really is going to help us down the road fill in the gaps that we have this year. It’s going to provide us some important data that we can look at across states, across key districts, and across the nation to see how this engagement varies.”
Part of NAEP’s goal is to further address rural inequities such as poverty and a lack of resources.
“One of the challenges Michigan faced as schools were going remote was the digital divide,” Gutman said. “In parts of rural Michigan, high speed internet was not readily available. That's an infrastructure problem that immediately has to be addressed in order to make virtual learning feasible.”
The survey will continue through the end of the 2020-21 school year.
Gutman said this is a good first step towards quelling a strong need and desire for answers but reminded the process will take time and there is much more work to do.
