One Fate, Two Fates. Red States, Blue States: New Data Reveal a 432-Hour In-Person Learning Gap Produced by the Politics of Pandemic Schooling
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New data reveals that schools in Republican states offered in-person learning at nearly double the rate compared to Democratic states during the pandemic. This resulted in an estimated 66 additional days, or 432 hours, of face-to-face instruction for students.
These statistics, provided by the school calendar tracking website Burbio, offer a comprehensive overview of schooling decisions throughout COVID-19 and further emphasize the long-standing partisan divide acknowledged by researchers.
From September to May, states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election provided students with the opportunity to learn in the classroom 74.5% of the time, while states that voted for Joe Biden only offered in-person learning 37.6% of the time. Red states have a student population of over 22 million, whereas blue states have over 28 million students.
Chad Aldeman, the policy director at Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, states that the full impact of this disparity remains largely unmeasured. However, he believes that it could have significant effects on students.
"Time serves as a rough indicator of learning," Aldeman explained. "So, when instructional time is lost, it is likely that learning is also lost."
According to Aldeman, virtual learning programs often did not provide as much live instruction as traditional schooling models. Instead, they mainly relied on asynchronous methods such as worksheets and practice problems. Aldeman calculated that his first-grade son, who attends Fairfax public schools in Virginia, would receive less than half the amount of face-to-face instruction in the 2020-21 school year compared to a typical year. Other districts offered even fewer hours of real-time teaching.
"This means that many children are missing out on valuable live instruction and interactions with their teachers and peers," Aldeman expressed.
By utilizing Burbio’s data, calculated the average number of days and hours of in-person learning in each state based on a 180-day school year with a 6.5-hour school day. Dennis Roche, co-founder of Burbio, together with his data team, has been mapping out learning models in the top 460 districts across the United States over the past year. Roche, who is not an education policy expert, decided to present Burbio’s information on a map shaded in purple to avoid associating with any specific political party. Nonetheless, the patterns were clearly discernible.
"By the middle to late fall, it started to look very much like an electoral map," Roche shared.
Deeper shades of purple, indicating a higher proportion of in-person learning, dominated the Midwest and Southeast, while lighter shades, representing predominantly virtual or hybrid learning, prevailed on the West Coast and Northeast. Roche also highlighted regions with light purple shades, symbolizing swing states that had mixed rates of classroom instruction.
Burbio’s data further reinforced previous academic findings that had already established a strong connection between local support for then-President Donald Trump and the decision to resume in-person learning in the fall. Jon Valant, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, published significant findings indicating that a county’s partisan leaning was more predictive of its school reopening decision than the coronavirus case rates in the surrounding community. Valant believes this trend extends beyond education and demonstrates how the pandemic has divided along political lines in various aspects.
"Schools are just one example of the many ways in which this pandemic has divided people along political lines," Valant explained.
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According to Valant, the reopening of schools starting in February can be largely attributed to the presence of a new president in the White House.
Valant stated, "The Biden administration made it clear from the beginning that it wanted to bring students back to in-person learning as soon as it was safe to do so. This helped reduce the political tensions surrounding school reopening."
The availability of COVID-19 vaccines also played a significant role in the return of students to classrooms. Valant stated, "I believe that the availability of COVID-19 vaccines helped ease people’s concerns."
Towards the end of winter and into the spring, Roche noticed a trend of districts announcing plans to return to in-person learning. This was often influenced by mandates from state governors, education commissioners, and health directors.
Roche recalls, "It happened almost immediately. New Mexico, for example, went from mostly virtual learning to mostly in-person learning within a span of two weeks, in response to a change in state officials’ stance."
However, decoding the rhetoric around school reopening was often challenging. Roche stated that nearly every district claimed to be committed to face-to-face learning when safe, but the definition of "safety" varied.
In Oregon, school reopenings were determined by community transmission rates. Marc Siegel, communications director for the Oregon Department of Education, explained, "In areas with minimal or no spread, schools could operate similarly to pre-pandemic conditions. In areas where that was not possible, distance learning best practices were implemented." Despite this approach, Oregon had low rates of in-person learning and COVID-19 infection compared to other states.
In contrast, Florida took bold steps to reopen schools in the fall, with precautions in place for student safety. However, some schools did not enforce mask mandates, despite higher infection rates compared to Oregon.
Georgetown’s Aldeman observed that due to the heated debates surrounding reopening, districts often made decisions that could be seen as misguided in either direction.
Rhode Island, a state that voted for Biden and had a Democratic governor, made a strong effort to reopen schools. The Rhode Island Department of Education attributed this to the guidance provided by state leadership, including then-Governor Gina Raimondo, who advocated for in-person learning from the start of the academic year and now serves as Biden’s commerce secretary.
Georgia, another Biden-voting state with Republican leadership, prioritized in-person learning based on community input. Meghan Frick, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Education, explained, "Our focus was not on politics, but on listening to parents, educators, students, and communities."
Ryan Brown, chief communications officer for the South Carolina Department of Education, acknowledged the political influence in his state’s reopening plans. He stated, "South Carolina is a predominantly Republican state, which certainly played a role. However, there was support for in-person learning from both conservative and Democratic officials."
Brown added, "The majority of students benefit from face-to-face learning with high-quality teachers."
Texan educators are taking an active approach in locating students who have been absent from remote classes. Recent federal data from March reveals that more than one-third of elementary students are still learning remotely on a full-time basis, with higher rates for Black, Hispanic, and Asian youth. The percentage of middle schoolers participating in online learning is even higher, reaching 40% overall. Many families, particularly those of minority backgrounds, have expressed a desire to continue remote learning in the upcoming 2021-2022 school year.
However, the data from Burbio fails to capture the complexity of family decision-making. Burbio provides only the percentage of students whose schools offer in-person learning options, without considering the individual choices made by families. The Burbio figures also make certain assumptions, such as hybrid learning models representing half of the classroom learning time compared to traditional models, even though some programs offer more or less. Additionally, some districts have reduced their traditional learning schedules to just four days, yet they are still classified as fully in-person.
Due to the pandemic, millions of students across the country have not set foot in a physical classroom. Given this situation, experts like Aldeman, who has studied previous disruptions in learning caused by events like natural disasters, suggest that it is now the responsibility of school districts to help students catch up.
"A lot of kids will require more time than usual to get back on track," he explained. "We need to identify the students who are struggling and allocate resources accordingly."
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