Did a lot of students not show up for remote schooling during the spring coronavirus-related shutdown?
Final statistics won't be available until the end of the year, but surveys of teachers suggest sizable numbers of students didn't participate in the hastily-assembled distance learning programs during the months-long closures in the spring of 2020.
A nationally representative survey of 600 public school teachers found that 46% of teachers reported 60% or fewer of students participating. Another national survey of 7,195 teachers from 194 schools found that student participation was lower in Black-majority schools (45%) than in schools with fewer than 10% Black students (72%). Participation also was lower among low-income students in general, reflecting lower rates of access to home broadband and computers.
Even the act of taking attendance was disrupted, complicating efforts to get accurate estimates.
