Distance learning in California scores ‘F’ for ‘Ranking’ – Orange County Register

Official results of more than a year of full- and part-time Zoom study are available, and the method that has become almost universal to students in 2020 has received a final grade: F for failure.

Here are some of the most striking facts from state data on student performance for the 2020-21 school year that ended last June:

Fewer than 25 percent of California students took standardized tests in 2021, a result of boredom caused by the scarcity of face-to-face instruction. Graduation rates fell 1 percent, with Latinos almost doubling the overall decline and the graduation rate for black students quadrupling. At the end of last school year, only 83.6 percent of students who started high school four years earlier were able to earn a diploma. And the younger students, the worse they are with Zoom.

Some of the realities of Zoom learning, which is mostly done via laptops delivered by schools, were evident long before the figures were available.

Students are less engaged than when taught face-to-face. They may simply leave the computer and not attend classes, and in millions of cases, no one will be present to guide them back. Kids can eat all they want during class and the phone will ring too, distracting them more.

The results of all of this were seen in the students’ performance on standardized tests. After five years of steady improvement, test scores fell for the least privileged groups of students, primarily Black and Latino.

This is the conclusion of the Smarter Balanced assessment test scores, although very few students actually took the tests in 2021. They were canceled in 2020. Voter turnout is small for the tests presumably indicate that only the most engaged students are included – and scores drop even for them.

English language results are down 4% from 2019 to 2021, with just 48% meeting or exceeding national standards (another term for passing the test) and 5% in math, with only 33% passing or exceed the standard, compared to 38 two years earlier – already a lousy performance.

Pass rates fell 12% in math and 6% in the English literature test. The drop was much sharper for Latinos (22% in math, 10% in English) and almost worse for blacks (9% in math and 7% in English).

In short, Zoom – or distance learning has proven disastrous for students, it is aimed to stay engaged during the worst times of the pandemic.

So California’s public schools, already seen as a disgrace by many parents and others, are made worse by students unable to attend in person.

And that’s only for kids who can speak English fluently. For the state’s approximately 1.1 million English learners, things have turned for the worse. Their drop in performance was even larger than the overall result for ethnic minorities as a whole.

All of this terrifies the adults who are working to improve the future of students today. “(This) has the potential to have life-changing effects, especially for our youngest (students),” said Samantha Tran, executive director of education policy at the advocacy group Children Now, told a reporter.