Roose, Kevin, and Dana Goldstein. “The Education Lost to the Pandemic.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Sept. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/podcasts/the-daily/schools-coronavirus-delta-variant.html?showTranscript=1
Main Idea: Students around America have not been learning because of the pandemic
Supporting Detail 1: Students who cannot fluently read by 3rd grade tend to get lower grades and struggle with school more. Those students have a higher chance of dropping out of highschool and not attending or completing college.
Supporting Detail 2: Many Students during the pandemic did not enroll into online school at all. In Honolulu an elementary school lost about half of its kindergartens that were supposed to be enrolling into the school. And many schools around Philadelphia lost around 25-50 percent of incoming kindergarteners.
Supporting Detail 3: Children under the age of 12 do not have access to the Covid-19 vaccine. With the new Delta variant appearing, schools are having a hard time trying to open classrooms.
Part 2 Summary:
In “The Education Lost To The Pandemic” by Kevin Roose and Dana Goldstein they talk about how students around America have been losing out on learning because of the ongoing pandemic. Dana Goldstein goes on to say that students who cannot fluently read by 3rd grade have a higher risk of dropping out and tend to struggle more with school. With the pandemic around that number will only increase. She then begins to explain how many students did not enroll into online school. Places such as Philadelphia and Honolulu have lost up to fifty percent of its kindergarteners that were supposed to be enrolling in online school. Furthermore, Goldstein mentions with the rise of the new Delta variant of Covid-19 children under the ages of twelve do not have access to the vaccine. School districts are having trouble opening classrooms because public schools might become sites of high transmission.
Part 3a Reflection:
I must say Dana Goldstein brings up some great points throughout this podcast. When she says “I hesitate to predict because so many of the predictions that we’ve made through the pandemic have not panned out. But there are reasons to be hopeful….we have a flawed and unequal school system. And that was true way before the pandemic. And this is a gargantuan task with really high stakes. And in fact, this is one of the biggest challenges that the American public school system has ever faced.” She mentions how this is one of the biggest challenges public schools have faced. I totally agree the pandemic really showed the many flaws our school systems have. But I feel like it was also one of the biggest challenges for students too. The brief transition from in person learning to online can be quite challenging especially for younger students. Online classes tend to be quite boring and students will lose focus during class and the teachers have no control over it. I want to ask Goldtsein why she hesitates to predict her assumptions. For the most part I do believe her assumptions are correct that there will definitely be an increase in the amount of students who will drop out in the future. Goldstein says there are reasons to be hopeful but if that is the case but until this pandemic is truly over nothing will change.
Part 3b Rhetorical Analysis:
The genre of this article is source is a factual podcast. The purpose is to inform others about how students are losing out on education and what schools can do to prevent that. The tone of this piece is objective. Dana Gold Stein is an American Journalist and a domestic correspondent at New York Times. She is the author of “The Teacher Wars” a NYT bestseller and has written many other articles. This source is reliable because it was published interview by The Daily. Since 2017 The Daily has had over 3.8 million listeners and was the top 10 most listened podcasts by autumn of 2017.
Part 4 Notable Quotes:
“They’re leaving for many of the same reasons that regular attendance was difficult for so many students — so the lack of access to the technology they needed, the fact that they may not have had an adult to sit side by side with them and guide them through these lessons. Or there were language barriers, or perhaps difficulties getting all the paperwork together that schools ask for to enroll a child.” (Dana Goldstein)
“So last week, the C.D.C. released a case study of a school, an elementary school in Marin County, California in the Bay Area, that experienced an outbreak of the Delta variant. And in this case, a single unvaccinated teacher infected about half of her masked students. And the way this happened was pretty extraordinary.” (Dana Goldstein)
“So some of the observations I’ve heard from teachers are children who aren’t familiar with how to correctly hold a pencil, for example, who do not open a book in the correct direction and understand that writing in the English language flows from left to right. Kids who just need help with those routines of the classroom — so sharing materials with friends, lining up to walk to the gymnasium or a cafeteria, raising their hands and waiting for their turn to speak.” (Dana Goldstien)
