RAB Source Entry 1 – Gentian Dumani (UPDATED)

Mervosh, Sarah. “The Pandemic Hurt These Students the Most.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/covid-schools-at-home-learning-study.html

Main Idea: Students in the USA are facing learning set backs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supporting Detail 1: “About 5.5 million public school students in third through eighth grade who took the NWEA’s tests during the school year, and compared their performance similar to students in 2019. The percentiles in the report ranked student achievement for both groups against national norms before the pandemic. Perhaps even more troubling, the students who were most affected by the crisis were already behind their peers before the pandemic, and the added loses have pushed them further back.”

Supporting Detail 2: “By the end of the school year, students were, on average, four to five months behind where students have been typically in the past according to the report by McKinsey, which found similar impacts on the most vunerable students.”

Supporting Detail 3: “The report analyzed the results from more than 1.6 million elementary school students who took assessments this spring and compared the results with demographically similar groups in the spring of 2017, 2018 and 2019….. The disparities quite likely reflect a number of factors. Low-income communities and communities of color tended to have less access to technology, and they experienced disproportionate rates of Covid-19 and higher unemployment. The McKinsey report also found that students at more urban schools faced greater setbacks than at rural schools, which generally were more likely to go back to school in person.”

Part 2 Summary:

In “The Pandemic Hurt These Students The Most” Sarah Mershov reports that public school students ranging from kindergarten to highschool have been dramatically falling behind in classes because of the pandemic. The NWEA, an association responsible for administering tests for students in grades k-12 compared the results from exams taken in the 2020-2021 school year to the 2019 school year. They found out that third graders who attended a low income school tested 17 percentile points lower in math in 2020 compared to similar students in 2019. According to a report by the McKinsey company, students were four to five months behind where they should have been in the past and students who attended schools that were majority black or hispanic would be six months behind compared to white students. In addition, Emma Dorn an associate partner at the McKinsey company analyzed the results of 1.6 million elementary school students who took exams and revealed that low income communities and communities of color have less access to technology, and often have a harder time dealing with covid-19.

Part 3A Reflection:

I chose this article by Sarah Mershov because she thoroughly explains how  Covid 19 has affected the classrooms around America. I myself have experienced many learning deficits throughout remote learning to a point where I was attending class everyday and learning absolutely nothing. She states the people who are affected by learning loss the greatest are people who live in communities of color because those areas have less access to technology. My question to Mershov is what kind of technology do these students not have access to? I personally have access to technology and still did not perform well during online school. I feel like she should have added an extra section in her article explaining why the lack of technology is a contributing factor to learning loss. I agree when she begins to say “Frequent, intensive tutoring — one-on-one or in small groups, multiple times a week — is one of the most effective ways to help students make up for academic gaps.” This is a way to tackle the effects of learning loss. However, it’s just not physically possible. Schools would need a ridiculous amount of money and teachers to make this possible.

Part 3b Rhetorical analysis:

Mershov’s audience is everyone. Her purpose is to inform and to bring awareness to the fact that students are losing out on education. The tone of this article is objective. Sarah Mershov is a reporter for the New York Times and has written multiple articles covering prek-12 education. It’s a reliable source because the NYT has a worldwide audience and is operated by many award winning writers.

Part 4 Notable quotables:

“The findings paint an alarming picture of an education system plagued by racial and socioeconomic inequities that have only gotten worse during the coronavirus pandemic. An educational gap became a gulf.” (Sarah Mershov)

“The losses did not just happen early on. In one surprising finding, NWEA researchers found that students made some gains in the fall, but that the pace of learning stalled more significantly from winter to spring, even after many schools had returned in person” (Sarah Mershov)

“The problem with the learning loss narrative is it is premised on a set of racialized assumptions and focused on test scores.” (Ann Ishimaru)