This article, which originally appeared at The Marshall Project, is being co-published here via the SoJo Exchange from the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. When his father died last year of an overdose, Rodney Watson thought he would miss the funeral and his last chance to say...

When leading assessment providers released data in November on pandemic-related learning loss, the news wasn’t as dreadful as some had predicted. But new attempts to dig deeper into the results from two states now show that many students, particularly those in the elementary grades, have made far less progress than they would have in a...

COVID-19 is changing what students plan to do after high school, with those more affected by the pandemic more likely to have altered their post-graduation expectations, a new student survey reveals. One in four high school seniors said their postsecondary plans had changed since the start of the pandemic, an increase from 18 percent of...

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many educators learned very quickly that online learning takes work. In the spring, teachers and administrators had to take on the near-impossible task of moving all their classes and interactions online with no warning. Fall brought its own uncertainties, as districts around the country struggled to reconcile the need to...

Shortly after the Centers for Disease Control unveiled new federal guidance surrounding reopening schools for in-person learning — guidance that prioritizes masking and social distancing as key strategies and outlines a new color-coded system for measuring surrounding community spread — the union representing more than 35,000 Los Angeles teachers pushed back against the suggestion that...

Students — even those in high school — can return to classrooms full time in communities with low to moderate spread of COVID-19 as long as schools enforce universal mask wearing and 6 feet of distance between students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in updated school reopening guidance. The agency also...

With millions of students still lacking reliable internet to complete their assignments and interact with teachers, the incoming Biden administration is expected to take multiple steps to address the digital divide, according to sources who have participated in conversations with the transition team. Bart Epstein, CEO of the nonprofit EdTech Evidence Exchange, said he understands...

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, school districts and public health experts have sought to solve a key missing link for safe in-person learning: how to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 cases among students and staff. Asymptomatic carriers might come into school buildings and transmit the virus unknowingly, officials worry. In Los Angeles, the district superintendent...

The damage wrought to American education by the COVID-19 pandemic beggars description, and so we are reduced to metaphor: Schools have been hit by an earthquake, a hurricane, a war. There is a need for disaster relief for children who have lost precious time in school and are traumatized by the effects of COVID-19 on...

Mariah Hawkins wants to become a nurse. At 15, she is a 9th-grade student at iLEAD Academy in northern Kentucky, a selective regional high school where students take college-level courses in preparation for fast-growing STEM careers. In December, the school received a $100,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Education’s Rural Tech Challenge. Yet just...