As we approach the start of the second semester in the majority of K-12 Education institutes in the United States, the data from Fall 2020 has begun to pile in. The good news; things aren’t nearly has bad as we had anticipated they would be. The bad news; things are still not good.

The academic needs of students are being addressed in some capacity. NWEA compiled the data from the Fall 2020 session and found that many students learning achievements only declined by 5-10%, which certainly is better than early projections anticipated. The issue, however, is how we mitigate this downward trend moving into Spring 2021. Remote learning is achieving some success.

Nearly 40-60% of students have enrolled in a district that is offering remote learning (only). However, with the fluctuations in COVID-19 cases, deaths, and politics, the reality of the situation has emerged–most students are learning remotely in various parts of the school term. Conversations with my students reveals a simple truth: they’d prefer to be in person. They’d prefer to be able to hang out with their friends, but many of my students understand the necessity of remote learning.

The bigger issues is that we are nearly nine months into the pandemic. Many districts across the country have been remote since March, and yet, nearly a quarter of students lack basic access to the wifi speeds necessary to participate in school or even a device to work on.

We have a huge issue in this nation with equal access to a basic education.

Frankly, this shouldn’t be a political issue, but it has emerged as such. Brookings Nicol Turner Lee is writing about what educators already know. There is an economic, social, and physical divide to accessing education. This system has existed as long as modern education has existed, but the COVID-19 crises has increased the prevalence and visibility of these issues.

Imagine you are a single parent who is working two jobs to get by. You have several children, aged 5-17, and you live in the “poor” side of town because that’s all your two minimum wage jobs can afford. Suddenly, there’s a pandemic and your kids are having to attend school from home. Your youngest is too young to be left unsupervised and both your children need to attend school. Leaving work to stay home with them during the day isn’t an option because you are already one missed rent check away from eviction. You can’t afford to upgrade your internet so you have to choose between internet and food for the month. You choose food. Now your kids can’t attend class regularly because you don’t have internet service. Now the school is calling you over and over again because your students are truant, but you can’t do anything about it because you have to go to work. Now the school is calling the state for educational negligence and you need to attend court.

This might seem like a dramatic case, but this is the reality for many of our families in the United States right now. Unfortunately, the pandemic and the reoccurring educational crisis is disportionality impacting minority communities. A larger discussion on redlining districts and economic disparities between white neighborhoods and those of Black, Hispanic, or Indigenous is perhaps a discussion for another day.

Where do we go from here? The answer is largely unclear and dependent on a number of factors. Governmental intervention is the first of these. Educational institutes need a large stimulus package to start. There’s not been much help since March. Why? We need to ensure that every child in K-12 has access to not only a laptop or tablet, but internet. Schools have done a decent job of getting the technology out there, but they’ve done virtually nothing else to aid families with the financial burden of purchasing internet that suits the number of students they might have in the home. Obviously, a family with one child won’t need the same internet capacity as a family with four children.

Unenrollment. Families are unenrolling and schools are dropping families. We need federal legislation that protects families from returbition. Punitive measures for students and families during a pandemic are arbitrary and target the most at-risk students. Why on earth would we be denying opportunity to a basic education when the reality is that our society demands, at the very least, a high school education?

Addressing the needs of students and their families is the very first step in curbing the rapid decline in quality education in the United States, especially during the pandemic. Of course, there are few answers to be had when there is zero discussion occuring.