Restarting and Reinventing School Learning in the Time of COVID and Beyond Linda Darling-Hammond, Abby Schachner, and Adam K. Edgerton in collaboration with Aneesha Badrinarayan, Jessica Cardichon, Peter W. Cookson Jr., Michael Griffith, Sarah Klevan, Anna Maier, Monica Martinez, Hanna Melnick, Natalie Truong, and Steve Wojcikiewicz AUGUST 2020 Restarting and Reinventing School: Learning in the Time of COVID and Beyond Linda Darling-Hammond, Abby Schachner, and Adam K. Edgerton in collaboration with Aneesha Badrinarayan, Jessica Cardichon, Peter W. Cookson Jr., Michael Griffith, Sarah Klevan, Anna Maier, Monica Martinez, Hanna Melnick, Natalie Truong, and Steve Wojcikiewicz Acknowledgments The authors thank our Learning Policy Institute colleagues Roberta Furger, Janel George, Tara Kini, Melanie Leung, and Patrick Shields for their support, contributions, and thought partnership. In addition, we thank Erin Chase and Aaron Reeves for their editing and design contributions to this project and the entire LPI communications team for its invaluable support in developing and disseminating this report. Without their generosity of time and spirit, this work would not have been possible. This research was supported by the S. D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, and the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation. Core operating support for the Learning Policy Institute is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders. External Reviewers This report benefited from the insights and expertise of the following external reviewers: David Garcia, Associate Professor with Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Director of the Arizona Education Policy Initiative (AEPI) at Arizona State University; Mark Greenberg, Edna Peterson Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research at Penn State University’s College of Health and Human Development and Board Member Emeritus of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL); Michael Magee, Chief Executive Officer of Chiefs for Change; and Lorrie Shepard, Distinguished Professor and Dean Emerita in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. We thank them for the care and attention they gave the report. The appropriate citation for this report is: Darling-Hammond, L., Schachner, A., & Edgerton, A. K. (with Badrinarayan, A., Cardichon, J., Cookson, P. W., Jr., Griffith, M., Klevan, S., Maier, A., Martinez, M., Melnick, H., Truong, N., Wojcikiewicz, S.). (2020). Restarting and reinventing school: Learning in the time of COVID and beyond. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute. This report can be found online at http://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/restarting-reinventing-school-covid. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Report originally published August 25, 2020 | Document last revised September 14, 2020 Revisions are noted here: http://learningpolicyinstitute.org/rrsltcb-update ii LEARNING POLICY INSTITUTE | Restarting AND REINVenting SCHOOL Table of Contents Executive Summary.................................................................................................................................. v Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................1 Priority 1: Close the Digital Divide .........................................................................................................5 Priority 2: Strengthen Distance and Blended Learning ................................................................... 10 Priority 3: Assess What Students Need ............................................................................................. 21 Priority 4: Ensure Supports for Social and Emotional Learning ..................................................... 33 Priority 5: Redesign Schools for Stronger Relationships ................................................................. 46 Priority 6: Emphasize Authentic, Culturally Responsive Learning .................................................. 59 Priority 7: Provide Expanded Learning Time ..................................................................................... 70 Priority 8: Establish Community Schools and Wraparound Supports ........................................... 80 Priority 9: Prepare Educators for Reinventing Schools ................................................................... 88 Priority 10: Leverage More Adequate and Equitable School Funding ........................................... 98 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................108 About the Authors ...............................................................................................................................109 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1 A Framework for Restarting and Reinventing School ....................................................3 Figure 1.1 Percentage of Students Without High-Speed Internet by Race and Ethnicity ..............5 Figure 2.1 Wyoming’s Framework for Digital Learning ................................................................ 16 Figure 2.2 Additional Terms for “Attendance” During Distance Learning ................................... 19 Figure 3.1 Sample Questions for Stakeholder Engagement ....................................................... 23 Figure 4.1 Strategies for Explicitly Addressing Social and Emotional Learning at Every Grade Level ...................................................................................................... 36 Figure 4.2 Ways That Social and Emotional Learning Can Be Integrated Throughout the School Day ........................................................................................................... 38 Figure 5.1 Coordination Between Schools and Extended Learning Programs Is Critical to Limiting the Spread of COVID-19 ............................................................... 51 Table 7.1 Examples of Federal Funding Streams Through ESSA That Can Support Summer Programs ..................................................................................................... 77 Figure 9.1 Example A/B Schedule .............................................................................................. 93 Figure 9.2 North Carolina Achievement Trends (NAEP 8th-Grade Mathematics Scores) .......... 95 Figure 10.1 Public School Elementary and Secondary Teachers ................................................. 99 Figure 10.2 Relationship Between State Productivity Growth and Increase in College Attainment From 1979 to 2012 ..............................................................................100 Figure 10.3 Education Week Equity Scores ................................................................................106 LEARNING POLICY INSTITUTE | Restarting AND Reinventing SCHOOL iii iv LEARNING POLICY INSTITUTE | Restarting AND Reinventing SCHOOL Executive Summary Across the United States, state education agencies and school districts face daunting challenges and difficult decisions for restarting schools as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. As state and district leaders prepare for what schooling will look like in 2020 and beyond, there is an opportunity to identify evidence-based policies and practices that will enable them to seize this moment to rethink school in ways that can transform learning opportunities for students and teachers alike. Our current system took shape almost exactly a century ago, when school designs and funding were established to implement mass education on an assembly-line model organized to prepare students for their “places in life”—judgments that were enacted within contexts of deep-seated racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural prejudices. In a historical moment when we have more knowledge about human development and learning, when society and the economy demand a more challenging set of skills, and when—at least in our rhetoric—there is a greater social commitment to equitable education, it is time to use the huge disruptions caused by this pandemic to reinvent our systems of education. The question is: How we can harness these understandings as we necessarily redesign school? How can we transform what has not been working for children and for our society into a more equitable and empowering future? This report provides an overarching framework that focuses on how policymakers as well as educators can support equitable, effective teaching and learning regardless of the medium through which that takes place. This framework provides research, state and local examples, and policy recommendations in 10 key areas that speak both to transforming learning and to closing opportunity and achievement gaps. It illustrates how policymakers and educators can: 1. Close the digital divide 2. Strengthen distance and blended learning 3. Assess what students need 4. Ensure supports for social and emotional learning 5. Redesign schools for stronger relationships 6. Emphasize authentic, culturally responsive learning 7. Provide expanded learning time 8. Establish community schools and wraparound supports 9. Prepare educators