ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the educational experiences of diverse student populations throughout the country and among Virginia public schools. English Learners (ELs) had a unique set of needs and services prior to the pandemic, and potentially were more vulnerable to pandemic-related disruptions in typical school operations than other student groups. We analyze statewide, student-level administrative data on the composition of the EL population, the identification for and reclassification out of EL services, and the exit of ELs from public school enrollment in kindergarten through grade twelve between the 2010-11 and 2020-21 school years to examine changes between the pre-pandemic period and first post-pandemic onset year (2020-21). Our key findings include the following: (1) Following the onset of the pandemic, the number of students classified as EL decreased for the first time in a decade. Specifically, whereas the number of students classified as EL increased by 26.0% (25,171 more students) between 2010-11 and 2019-20, the number of students classified as EL decreased by 3.2% (3,852 fewer students) between 2019-20 and the first post-pandemic onset year (2020-21). (2) There was a 21.6% decline (6,223 fewer students) in the number of Virginia K-12 public school students newly identified for EL services in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20. The drop in new EL identification occurred across student groups, but was largest among Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students, and ninth graders. (3) The number of EL students reclassified as fully English proficient decreased by 57.3% (8,169 fewer students) in 2020-21 as compared to the pre-pandemic period. This decline is nearly three times the size of the previous largest year-to-year change. The drops in reclassification among ELs occurred across student groups and were somewhat larger among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students. (4) EL students' exits from Virginia public schools in the post-pandemic onset were a continuation of pre-pandemic trends and did not meaningfully vary by race/ethnicity, economically disadvantaged status, or disability status.
ABSTRACT
The "Report on the Condition of Education" is a congressionally mandated annual report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Using the most recent data available (at the time this report was written) from NCES and other sources, the report contains key indicators on the condition of education in the United States at all levels, from prekindergarten through postsecondary, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. There are core indicators that are updated every year and spotlight indicators that provide in-depth analyses on topics of interest to education agencies, policymakers, researchers, and the public. At the broadest level, the Condition of Education Indicator System is organized into five sections: family characteristics;preprimary, elementary, and secondary education;postsecondary education;population characteristics and economic outcomes;and international comparisons. The Report on the "Condition of Education 2023" encompasses key findings from the Condition of Education Indicator System. The full contents of the Indicator System can be accessed online through the website or by downloading PDFs for the individual indicators. [For "The Condition of Education 2023": At a Glance, see ED628291. For the "Report on the Condition of Education 2022. NCES 2022-144," see ED619870.]
ABSTRACT
The aim of the current research is to investigate the language assessment literacy perceptions of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers working at state primary, middle, and high schools in Turkey. Another purpose of the study was to investigate how EFL teachers adapted their language assessment skills to the online teaching context during the Covid- 19 pandemic, and to what extent. Additionally, challenges and solutions of teachers in transforming their language assessment skills into online education were investigated. A mixed-methods study was employed as the research design. The study obtained and triangulated both qualitative and quantitative data to enhance its validity. In the quantitative phase, Vogt and Tsagari (2014)'s LAL questionnaire which includes three factors i.e. Language Testing and Assessment (LTA), classroom-focused LTA, and purposes of testing, content and concepts of LTA was administered to the participants. The quantitative data were descriptively analysed through the SPSS program in order to identify EFL teachers' training levels and needs in online language assessment. The qualitative data for the study were gathered through written structured interviews with (n) EFL teachers and analyzed using inductive methods. The study's findings revealed that the teachers have a high level of assessment literacy in terms of both face-to-face and online assessment and are familiar with basic assessment tools. However, there is a gap between their theoretical knowledge of assessment and their classroom practices. Additionally, the teachers expressed a need for more in-service training in assessing the skills of English language learners in online environments.
ABSTRACT
This paper uses "prolepsis,” a process of reaching into the past to inform present and future practices, to understand 12 English-as-a-second language (ESL) teachers' practices of supporting English language learners (ELLs) through remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020-2021 in British Columbia and to envision some different current and future post-pandemic classroom literacies for diverse learners. Accounts of these ESL teachers' synthetical moments of teaching and supporting ELLs during the pandemic suggest that they had to navigate "new” areas of teaching, including attending to students' social-emotional learning (SEL), connecting with ELL parents, teaching and engaging students via technology-supported instruction, and co-teaching with mainstream teachers, on the basis of limited or no pre-pandemic experience. These insights suggest a need to widen the focus on ESL teachers' knowledge and expertise in applied linguistics and instructional strategies to include classroom literacies in integrating SEL into ESL instruction, adopting interactive, student-driven instructional designs and practices afforded by multimodal technologies, maintaining multiple channels of communication with parents and students, and team-teaching with classroom teachers to provide tailored language support for ELLs.
ABSTRACT
Les étudiants multilingues, selon le cadre déficitaire des "apprenants de langue seconde," sont désavantagés par rapport â leurs pairs unilingues. Ce cadre ne reconnaît pas les atouts qui accompagnent le développement de la langue â la maison, appelés la richesse culturelle de la communauté ("Community Cultural Wealth": Yosso 2005). Dans cette étude, nous avons posé la question suivante : qu'est-ce que les parents d'enfants multilingues considerent comme des obstacles et des facilitateurs pour soutenir le développement langagier de leurs enfants avant et pendant le COVID-19 ? Six entrevues semi-structurées ont été menées en ligne avec des parents d'enfants ágés de 3 â 5 ans parlant une langue autre que l'anglais â la maison. Ces entrevues ont été enregistrées, transcrites et analysées â l'aide de la méthode qualitative d'analyse de contenu, en utilisant un codage inductif et déductif pour identifier les themes. Nous avons organisé ces themes selon le modele bioécologique de Bronfenbrenner (1979). Les résultats ont révélé que la plupart des obstacles et des facilitateurs au développement multilingue des enfants se situent au niveau du microsysteme de la famille. Les themes étaient liés aux attitudes et aux connaissances, â la maîtrise de l'anglais, â l'exposition, aux ressources et aux expériences des parents. De plus, nous avons constaté que la COVID-19 avait surtout un impact négatif sur l'enfant, le mlcrosystéme et l'exosysteme. Nous discutons de la maniére dont ces obstacles et ces facilitateurs sont liés â la richesse culturelle communautaire. Dans l'avenir, cette étude pourra contribuer â aborder la façon dont les systémes ont marginalisé les familles au sein de nos communautés et â promouvoir les connaissances et le capital culturel qu'offrent ces familles.Alternate :Multilingual students, according to the deficit framework of "English language learners," are at a disadvantage compared to their monolingual peers. This framework fails to recognize the assets that accompany home language development, referred to as Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso 2005). In this study, we asked what do parents of multilingual children identify as barriers and facilitators to supporting their children's language development before and during COVID-19? Six semi-structured interviews were conducted online with parents of children between 3 and 5 years old who spoke a language other than English at home. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the qualitative method of directed content analysis, employing both inductive and deductive coding to identify themes. We organized these themes according to Bronfenbrenner's (1979) Bioecological Model. Results revealed most barriers and facilitators to children's multilingual development are at the microsystem level of the family. The themes were related to attitudes and knowledge, English fluency, exposure, resources, and parents' experiences. Additionally, we found that COVID-19 mostly negatively impacted the child, microsystem, and exosystem. We discuss how these barriers and facilitators are related to the different Capitals of Community Cultural Wealth. Moving forward, this study can contribute to addressing how systems have marginalized families within our community and elevate the knowledge and cultural capital these families offer.
ABSTRACT
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, ELL teachers focused their culturally responsive instruction and supports through creating meaning, promoting academic and social success, and empowering students and families. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected almost all countries and more than 50 million people around the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate how ELL teachers' support for students in a southeastern school district, IISD, changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and ELL teachers' perceptions of how this change may have impacted ELLs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative, basic interpretive design using a questionnaire provided me with opportunities to examine how ELL teachers' support for ELLs. I sent the questionnaire to 41 ELL teachers who were representatives of 30 elementary, middle, and high schools. The responses from the eight participants highlighted the ELL supports' impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. I discovered several consistent themes of the ELL teachers' supports that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic in the areas of student, family, and staff support, as well as community and stakeholder engagement. Additionally, I discovered the ELL teachers' perceptions were divided between two groups of those who felt that nothing changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and those who felt the opposite, being more involved with supports increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. . (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
Since March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented stresses on the public education system in the United States. At every level, from the U.S. Department of Education down through local districts and individual schools, the pandemic has presented formidable challenges. Many of these challenges have been operational in nature but there have also been substantial instructional challenges during the pandemic. Early insight into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public schooling identified the challenges that schools faced in the pivot to online learning in spring 2020. Large proportions of teachers reported through the RAND American Teacher Panel (ATP) that they had not received adequate guidance from their school systems to serve particular populations of students, such as students with disabilities (SWDs), homeless students, and English learners (ELs). These pandemic-era instructional challenges compound existing barriers to quality instruction. This report examines issues of instructional system coherence during the 2020-2021 school year. Specifically, the report investigates teachers' perceptions of: (1) guidance they received about ELA instruction, (2) guidance around addressing the needs of traditionally underserved students, (3) coherence of their ELA instructional system, and (4) presence of contextual conditions identified through literature as supporting coherence.
ABSTRACT
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that building bridges between home and school benefits students' development. With online teaching, this translates into informal conversations before class starts or at the end of class as a teacher waits for a virtual classroom to fill up or empty out. Much of teaching language learners relies on fostering relationships with students. The ability to build those relationships can be compromised by the challenges of remote learning. When schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers were struggling with questions about how to deliver lessons and engage second language learners online. This article highlights one teacher's experiences and offers some advice based on those experiences and the literature.
ABSTRACT
The "Report on the Condition of Education" is a congressionally mandated annual report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Using the most recent data available (at the time this report was written) from NCES and other sources, the report contains key indicators on the condition of education in the United States at all levels, from prekindergarten through postsecondary, as well as labor force outcomes and international comparisons. There are core indicators that are updated every year and spotlight indicators that provide in-depth analyses on topics of interest to education systems, policymakers, researchers, and the public. At the broadest level, the Condition of Education Indicator System is organized into five sections: family characteristics, preprimary, elementary, and secondary education, postsecondary education, population characteristics and economic outcomes, and international comparisons. The "Report on the Condition of Education" 2022 encompasses key findings from the Condition of Education Indicator System. The Indicator System for 2022 presents 88 indicators, including the 23 indicators on crime and safety topics, and can be accessed online through the website or by downloading PDFs for the individual indicators. [For "'The Condition of Education 2022': At a Glance," see ED619873. For the "Report on the Condition of Education 2021. NCES 2021-144," see ED612942.]
ABSTRACT
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, ELL teachers focused their culturally responsive instruction and supports through creating meaning, promoting academic and social success, and empowering students and families. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected almost all countries and more than 50 million people around the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate how ELL teachers' support for students in a southeastern school district, IISD, changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and ELL teachers' perceptions of how this change may have impacted ELLs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative, basic interpretive design using a questionnaire provided me with opportunities to examine how ELL teachers' support for ELLs. I sent the questionnaire to 41 ELL teachers who were representatives of 30 elementary, middle, and high schools. The responses from the eight participants highlighted the ELL supports' impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. I discovered several consistent themes of the ELL teachers' supports that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic in the areas of student, family, and staff support, as well as community and stakeholder engagement. Additionally, I discovered the ELL teachers' perceptions were divided between two groups of those who felt that nothing changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and those who felt the opposite, being more involved with supports increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. . (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
The meaningfulness of the current educational landscape, where online learning is heavily practised, is often questioned. Experiential learning focuses on the learning process that learners undergo. It is believed to help them to make sense of the learning process through active participation and meaningful reflective practice. Debriefing is an experiential learning strategy that requires learners to reflect on their learning experiences and connect them to real-life situations. However, only a limited number of studies have investigated the use of debriefing in the English language teaching and learning context. To this end, this case study aimed to explore the effects of debriefing in online ESL classrooms and the challenges of online debriefing. The case study was conducted in Bintulu, a town in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, and involved two teachers who were actively conducting online ESL lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collection was conducted through in-depth interviews and observations of recorded online ESL lessons with a focus on the debriefing sessions. The findings indicated that debriefing has positive effects on active English language learners as it helps to improve their critical thinking ability as well as their oral and written language proficiency. The challenges of debriefing in online ESL classrooms include learners being hesitant to talk during lessons, teachers facing difficulties in using appropriate debriefing questions, as well as various technical problems.
ABSTRACT
There are various areas in the United States whose geographic location makes for unique rural communities, distanced from cities in more urban or industrialized regions. One such place is the population of Presidio, Texas, a rural community of approximately 5,000 people with the nearest cities being approximately 250 miles away. Existing research attempts to define acculturation through the lens of Latino or Hispanic cultures, otherwise known as Latinx, often failing to address specific subcultural groups within this cultural classification and disregarding the inter- and within cultural differences that may be impacted by regional differences (Michaels, 2014). Latinx, or Latino/Latina, is the umbrella term used for individuals of Latin descent. Populations of Mexican American adolescents residing in rural communities are believed to be uniquely affected by the acculturation or enculturation processes (Michaels, 2014). Acculturation refers to the process of integrating and adopting the values, customs, norms, attitudes, and behaviors of the dominant host culture (Nair et al., 2018). This happens when two or more cultures meet requiring an individual to adapt (Nair et al., 2018). Like acculturation, enculturation refers to socialization but is the individual process. A person learns the dynamics of their surrounding culture and acquires values and norms appropriate or necessary in that culture, like a child being born into a specific culture who naturally learns the culture's dynamics (Lorenzo-Blanco et al., 2012). As part of this process, the influences that limit, direct, or shape the individual (whether deliberately or not) include parents, other adults, peers, exposure to media, school settings, and so on. Several studies suggest gender roles may play a significant role in the way females and males respond to the acculturation process, resulting in differences in mental health outcomes (Revilla, 2008;Diaz & Bui, 2017). This study used the Brief Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA) and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System (PROMIS) to determine if psychological well-being is associated with levels of acculturation (ARSMA, n.d.;PROMIS, n.d.). The study focused on a group of students believed to be affected by the acculturation process due to disadvantages related to cultural factors or race. These students have been identified as English Language Learners (ELL) that participate in Limited English Proficiency programs in public school systems. By investigating Mexican American youth between ages 13 and 17 who reside in a rural border community, this study focused on this specific cultural group rather than the general Latinx population. Ultimately, the goal of the present study was to identify gender differences in acculturation and psychological well-being within Mexican American ELL youth residing in a rural border-town community. Due to obstacles related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the researcher was unable to gather a large enough sample to yield statistical significance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
Creating authentic and relevant field clinical experiences for teacher candidates is an essential foundational component of an effective educator preparation program (EPP). It is through these classroom interactions that teacher candidates gain meaningful insight into the day-to-day processes that accompany. Once remote instruction began due to COVID, field clinical and internship placements were immediately suspended leaving faculty in EPPs having to turn to virtual alternatives to complete course hours and key assignment requirements. These changes included the introduction of virtual learning modalities and venues such as tutorials, webinars, and even faculty and alumni-generated online learning series to compensate for the lack of contact hours. This work explores how the virtualfocused clinical experiences were conceptualized in addition to a qualitative analysis of teacher candidate self-efficacy as well as academic performance evaluated using a specially designed metric-based rubric emphasizing the transition from face-to-face to the virtual venue of clinical practice.
ABSTRACT
With the sudden transition to emergency remote instruction during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the examination of how online platforms and multimedia tools supported STEM educators and students is relevant and even urgent. This study documents how educators, despite limited prior training, rapidly developed, designed, and orchestrated their online course and captures their and their students' perceptions as they adapted to the virtual setting. The dissertation adds to the nascent body of literature on continuing education disrupted by disasters and civil crises.After developing a valid and reliable instrument measuring the extent to which educators and students were supported and satisfied with the emergency remote STEM environment, a pilot and national survey study of two groups followed. STEM educators (n= 109) - university teacher educators, pre-service teachers (PSTs), K-12 teachers, and 6th to 12th grade students (n=41) responded to the national survey. Additionally, twelve educators and four students were interviewed.Guided by the theoretical frameworks of boundary crossing and self-regulation learning, the data revealed tensions students faced as they struggled to complete assignments and adjusted to the reduced social presence of peers and teachers. Eight percent of the national study students remained "bored" and "uninterested" (11%). Additionally, 25% of the students did not want to take an online course in the future. The following themes emerged from the student interviews: (1) the desire for more regular, required, live, interactive sessions (2) the inclusion of motivating activities and collaborative experiences, and (3) personalized feedback rather than completion grades. Interviews with pre-service teachers (PST) demonstrated how a strong university teacher preparation program acts as a boundary spanner for transforming the identity of a teacher candidate to a recent graduate, certified and experienced with a virtual teaching internship. Support for PSTs came in the form of (1) teacher education emphasizing TPACK, (2) well-being check-ups from teacher educators, (3) frequent communication with the mentor teacher, and (4) opportunities for planning units, lessons, and preparing online materials, including the creation of instructional videos.The data also reflected emotional challenges teachers faced with creating boundaries between work and home. Interviews identified three categories of teachers, demonstrating either a low, medium, or high commitment level towards teaching in the new online setting. Achieving the high commitment level required a sense of responsibility, determination, and the ability to leverage boundary spanners such as PD trainings, social media, online repositories, and technological knowledgeable colleagues.Educator interviews reported disparities among students, underscoring the critical need for all education stakeholders to address the lack of access millions of students have to broadband service and technological devices. The study details teachers' empathy and heightened awareness of the psychological and economic pressures on their students, as well as how teachers supported ELLs and students with disabilities. Implications for practice include strategies respecting and valuing languages other than English in the STEM classroom, as well as being flexible with curriculum choices, software, and tools to best accommodate students with disabilities. Three models for motivating student participation emerged from the interviews: (1) Offering live optional office hours with incentives, (2) instituting themed meetings, and (3) envisioning live sessions as social spaces. Implementing variations of these models may help reduce the transactional distance between teachers-students and students-students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
Effective verbal communication in the English language poses many challenges for Malaysian students. As English is not their first language, the average Malaysian finds it difficult to attain the required speaking proficiency. COVID has only exacerbated this problem. Moving from a traditional classroom setting to an online one limits cohesive and effective verbal communication between the spreader and listener (s). Both students and teachers had to switch from traditional classroom instruction to online classroom instruction with various devices and technologies as their main means of communication. As a result, this study provides a systematic review of pertinent existing research into Investigating Speaking Challenges among English Language Learners (ESL) in Online Classrooms. We concentrated on 51 articles from the year 2006 to the year 2021, from a few databases. Google Scholar, L1 - https://media.proquest.com/media/hms/PFT/1/iT9BN?_a=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&_s=SfsIJYuCrgMB5UVgq5tFHz5FTUY%3D ERIC, Microsoft Academic, and ResearchGate were referred to. The review begins with a search and scanning of suitable articles related to this study before selection. Most of these articles disclosed speaking challenges and provided positive solutions to overcome them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both students and teachers dealt effectively with psychological issues such as shyness, lack of confidence, and anxiety, as well as technological aspects. Overall, this review gave some insights into the difficulties that ESL students have when they speak, as well as many ways to deal with them when learning online.
ABSTRACT
The literature emphasises the role of feedback (FB) in writing development, leading to explorations of different types of FB to provide, such as teacher-based FB (TBF), peer feedback (PF) and computer-based feedback (CBF). This quasi-experimental study aimed to investigate EFL learners' perceptions of the reliability of TBF, PF and CBF. The participants (n = 40) were Saudi male EFL students in a BA English programme at a Saudi university. The study employed an experimental group (n = 21) and a control group (n = 19). For data collection, pre- and post-intervention questionnaires were administered. The intervention exposed the participants to giving and receiving PF and introduced them to CBF. Following training in providing PF and using the automated system, the participants went through four cycles of writing during which they developed four essays;with each essay, PF and CBF were employed to produce multiple drafts. The main findings indicated that TBF was perceived to be the most reliable type of FB, and that CBF was considered more reliable than PF. Additionally, our findings suggest that the more students are exposed to CBF, the more likely they are to accept it. Pedagogical implications arising from these findings are also discussed.
ABSTRACT
The unprecedented global pandemic Covid-19 has changed our lives. The pandemic has also impacted the education sector. The significant change of educational methods from face-to-face learning to e-learning has undoubtedly resulted in a significant impact on the perceptions and effectiveness of e-learning among English language learners. This research is to ascertain the perceptions and effectiveness of learning English via e-learning through online surveys involving 337 students from a public university in Malaysia. The result on perceptions indicates that flexibility, freedom and interactivity are the reasons why students have positive inclinations towards e-learning, whilst less interaction with teachers, technical problems, and lack of conducive learning experience are the negative perceptions indicated by respondents. The result on the effectiveness of learning English via e-learning shows those students responded positively in learning writing, reading, listening and speaking. Generally, students were both impartial, and enjoyed e-learning. It is hoped that this research would broaden and widen the spectrum of e-learning among students during the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrant and linguistically diverse families have both borne the brunt of America's job losses and are overrepresented in professions that are considered essential to the country's response and recovery. Children in these households have experienced increased economic and food insecurity, instability in their child care, and trauma. Moreover, language barriers, poor digital literacy skills among parents, inequitable access to appropriate digital devices and robust internet, and lack of digital instructional resources for English learners (ELs) affected the quality of students' home learning environments during remote learning. Predictably, ELs have experienced setbacks in their English language development, academic learning, and social and emotional health due to more than a year of interrupted learning. As the pandemic recedes, schools approach normalcy, and a historic investment of federal education dollars flows to states and school districts, state education leaders face the exceptional responsibility of charting a new course for public schools and the ELs whom they serve. In this article, Julie Sugarman begins by emphasizing the need for states to provide technical assistance to schools on the use of state and federal funds and monitor whether schools used equitable shares of those funds on resources specifically tailored to EL needs. She goes on to discuss: sources of data that policymakers can access for useful information about how well schools serve ELs;ways state and school systems can ensure teacher training and professional learning for EL specialists and general classroom teachers;and strategies school districts found themselves experimenting with to inform and support ELs and their families during the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the education of students in Illinois and around the nation. Leaders at the Illinois State Board of Education and in Illinois public school districts want to better understand how student learning changed during the pandemic. This study examines data from 17 Illinois districts over five years, including four years prior to the pandemic, to measure how student learning changed in fall 2020 relative to fall terms prior to the pandemic. The study demonstrates how learning changed in both mathematics and reading for students in grades 3-8, as well as how these changes varied across student characteristics and district size. The study found that students in grades 4-8 scored lower than expected in mathematics following the onset of the pandemic, after adjusting for other factors. The magnitude varied by grade level. Larger estimated changes in learning occurred in grades 6-8 than in grades 4 and 5. Students in grades 3-8 did not experience any statistically significant changes in learning in reading. A further analysis of learning in mathematics showed that changes in learning varied across students with different characteristics but were unrelated to district size. The study findings should be interpreted with caution, especially when generalizing to the population of Illinois districts and students. The study includes a small number of districts, and the students in these districts differ from the statewide population of students.
ABSTRACT
This study examined publicly available data from the Institution of Education Sciences (IES) survey of school leaders concerning modes of instructions offered and subgroups prioritized during the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked: Do national data regarding instructional modes (i.e., remote, hybrid, and in-person) during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal different approaches of U.S. elementary and secondary schools in rural areas versus peer institutions in cities, suburbs, and towns? Our analysis showed that schools in rural areas are more readily and equitably offering in-person instruction than schools in suburbs and cities, particularly in regard to students of color. Additionally, we found that rural school leaders report prioritizing English learners, students with identified disabilities, students experiencing homelessness and students without home internet access at higher rates that their peers in urban and suburban schools.