Unfinished Learning: Parents, Schools, and The COVID School Closures

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant educational inequity, particularly for students with disabilities, English learners, and students living in poverty. Unfinished Learning follows families as they navigate virtual learning and explores the data on which students are recovering from learning lost during the pandemic. It also traces parent activism and offers suggestions on how schools, families, and communities can prepare for future closures.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 14 November 2022
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

All students were affected by the COVID-related school closures. However, the impact was significantly greater and more devastating for students who required in-person schooling the most, such as those with disabilities, English learners, and students living in poverty. According to one study, this represents the largest increase in educational inequality in a generation.

Unfinished Learning is a book that follows families as they navigate the challenges of virtual learning during the pandemic. It explores the struggles that parents face, such as figuring out how to log on to a sometimes unstable school platform and ensuring that their child's special education needs are being met. The book also looks at what data is currently showing about which students are (and which students are not) recovering from the learning loss experienced during the pandemic.

The book also traces the parent activism that emerged as a result of school closures. It explores two elections that followed close on the heels of school reopenings: the 2021 election for governor in Virginia and the 2022 recall of school board members in San Francisco. Many of the conclusions drawn by pundits about both of these elections do not align with either the polling or with parent interviews. Finally, the book offers some suggestions on how schools, families, and communities can prepare for the inevitable next school closures.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781475866735