School 2.0: How has the pandemic changed learning?

Over the past three pandemic-interrupted school years, as educators scrambled to respond to the greatest disruption to schooling in over a century, a common refrain emerged: Don’t return to the way things were. 

Scholars, policy makers, and school leaders have advocated for using the global health crisis as an opportunity to rethink and reinvent how education works in the United States, so that fewer gaps exist between kids of different racial and wealth backgrounds, and students are prepared with skills needed in the modern workforce.

With classes back in session, experts say the quest to reimagine teaching and learning has resulted in some modest changes, like greater use of technology and tutoring. Some alternatives, such as virtual schooling and microschools, still attract supporters. And districts have started to give more attention to the mental health needs of students and teachers. 

But the prolonged difficulties of school COVID-19 protocols – and the additional scrutiny of around instruction about race and gender – has left many educators and families exhausted and longing to return to normal. Those who want to see greater changes say that innovation, at least in the current education landscape, will take more time and persistence.