news articles about elementary education

Distracted students and stressed teachers: What an American school day looks like post-COVID

Pandemic in rearview, schools are full of challenges – and joy. step inside these classrooms to see their reality..

After a day full of math and reading lessons, third grader Ashley Soto struggles to concentrate during a writing exercise. She’s supposed to be crafting an essay on whether schools should serve chocolate milk, but instead she wanders around the classroom. “My brain is about to explode!” she exclaims. 

Across the country, fourth grade teacher Rodney LaFleur looks for a student to answer a math question. He reaches into a jar filled with popsicle sticks, each inked with the name of one of his students. The first student’s name he draws is absent. So is the second. And the third.

Principal Jasibi Crews goes through her email: She has seven absent employees and too few substitutes to fill in. She texts a plea to a group chat – are any coaches or support staff available to fill in? Dozens of children could be without teachers today if she doesn’t come up with a plan. 

These recent moments from public schools thousands of miles apart reveal a troubling fact confronting educators, parents and students: More than three years after the COVID outbreak began, some children are thriving but many others remain severely behind . This reality means recovering from COVID could be more costly, time-consuming and difficult than they anticipated, leaving a generation of young people struggling to catch up.

This isn’t what lawmakers and education leaders had envisioned. Many were hopeful the 2022-23 school year would be the one when things would return to normal – or, at least, closer to what they were like pre-pandemic. Schools were brimming with money to test new ways to accelerate learning and hire more staff. The new hires and the educators who stuck things out were determined to help kids make progress. There was no longer a health emergency.

USA TODAY education reporters spent six months observing elementary-school students, teachers and principals at four public schools in California and Virginia and asked them to keep journals to better understand the post-COVID education crisis and recovery. Districts in California and Virginia stayed remote for longer than those in many other states. Virginia also had some of the sharpest declines in test scores in the country. 

What the reporters observed and data confirms: Kids are missing more class time than before the pandemic because parents’ attitudes about school have changed. Educators encountered students who are severely behind in reading and math yet can hardly sit still after three years of shape-shifting school days. School administrators discovered that a deluge of cash doesn’t go very far in filling jobs too few people are willing to do. Staff shortages and experiments with new curriculum – sometimes intended to cram several years of lessons into one – collided with the everyday problems of many public schools: children and families without enough food or a consistent, safe home life. 

To tell this story, USA TODAY reporters cataloged moments they witnessed while visiting schools at different hours and days. What follows is a reconstructed timeline based on reporting that began last fall and an approximation of the challenges schools and students face on any given day. 

Teachers find new ways to cope with stress 

After rotating through sets of ab saws, leg lifts and battle ropes, a sweaty but grinning Daisy Andonyadis leaves her 6 a.m. high-intensity interval training class early so she can make it to school on time. Equipped with a piece of her mom's homemade Easter bread, Andonyadis – or Ms. A, as students and colleagues call her – is ready to start the school day. 

Ms. A, 32, started doing the class more regularly this school year to deal with the stress of teaching. She almost quit when she first started at Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, six years ago, overwhelmed by the pressure to do everything perfectly. “Just being able to breathe – the exercise really helps with that,” she says. 

Educators’ mental health has significantly worsened since the onset of the pandemic: Nearly 3 in 4 teachers in a survey last year reported frequent job-related stress, compared with a third of working adults overall. More than a quarter of teachers and principals said they were experiencing symptoms of depression.

Later, now showered and nibbling on her bread, Ms. A kicks off the school day as she always does: with a lesson on social and emotional skills. Kids move magnets with their names on them to emoji-like faces representing different emotions. Each classroom at Cora Kelly has one of these posters, and teachers and kids alike reposition their eponymous magnets throughout the day as their moods change. Today, lots of kids put their magnets on “tired.” 

There aren’t enough substitute teachers

Principal Jamie Allardice has many items on his day’s to-do list: preparing for state testing, planning for next school year and attending to the varying needs of school staff.

It will all have to wait.

Like Principal Crews, Allardice has trouble finding substitutes at times. So he’ll be filling in for a kindergarten teacher at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, California.

Most of the country’s public schools reported last year that more teachers were absent than before the pandemic, and they couldn’t always find substitutes when needed. The substitute teacher shortage predates COVID – and it’s getting worse, particularly at low-income schools . 

Allardice anticipates spending the day teaching the school’s youngest kids how to read sentences like “Is the ant on the fan?” and “Is the fat ant in the tin can?”

Everyday reminders of the pandemic’s effects 

Circles under her eyes, fourth grade teacher Wendy Gonzalez speedwalks into E.M. Downer Elementary in San Pablo, California, ahead of the first bell. The hallways are lined with student work. “My goal for this year is to actully learn,” one sheet reads, with the misspelling, “because I didn’t learn last year.” 

Another wall displays photographs Downer sixth graders took during the pandemic as an ever-present reminder of the damage inflicted by the pivot to remote learning. Above pictures of an empty tetherball court, a dog sitting on a stoop and a frog in darkness looking up to light, one student wrote, “We had to go to school at home for about 13 months.”

Ms. G, 45, who has taught for 19 years in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, including three at Downer, is in a hurry to see what condition her class is in after a substitute filled in the two days she was absent last week. She had a ministroke in March, which she blames in part on stress from teaching this year. 

In her classroom, her copy of a new Spanish textbook, "Caminos al Conocimiento Esencial,” is on her desk next to a set of Black history flashcards, a San Francisco Giants bobblehead and a can of Sunkist. On top of all the other academic targets her students must meet this year, the principal and literacy coach want her to test new lessons for teaching kids how to read and write in Spanish. 

“If I didn’t love my community I would be gone,” says Ms. G says after taking a seat. Notes of thanks and praise are tacked onto a bulletin board next to her. 

If I didn’t love my community I would be gone .

Principals have to be ‘there for everyone’

As part of her morning rounds, Principal Crews, 45, stops by a fourth grade classroom in the middle of a lesson on future careers. 

She notices a boy’s face is swollen and pulls him to the side. She feels his forehead, asks him if he’s feeling OK, if he was playing out near the poison ivy. He says he was playing there and it feels like a mosquito bit his face. She escorts him to the school nurse. 

Crews worked for more than 15 years in Virginia and California schools before becoming principal of Cora Kelly six years ago. She knows every student by name, greeting each one as they arrive at school. She’s also keenly attuned to each child’s individual needs on any given day – whether it’s for clothes or a first-aid kit.

Cora Kelly uses a framework known as a multitiered system of support, which is a fancy way of saying it works to address the core issues, in and out of the classroom, that may be affecting a child’s behavior or academic performance. That can mean home visits if a student misses a lot of school or help from a social worker if a child needs shoes or a screening. 

It’s emotionally grueling but gratifying work, Crews says, as is the job of supporting her own staff’s mental health.

“The hardest part of being an administrator has been coming back and making sure (the teachers) were OK so they could be there for the kids,” Crews says. “I wasn’t prepared for the tremendous emotional strain that that’s had on me. I had to be there for everyone, to make sure to take care of them so they could take care of the kids.”’

Rewarding good behavior

Ding. The students in Ms. A’s class are familiar with this chime. It means their teacher has given one of them a point using an app called Class Dojo that tracks their behavior. It has other functions, too, such as managing homework and communicating with parents.

Throughout the day, soft chimes signify when Ms. A has given a student a point. She rewards all kinds of things – being quiet, sitting nicely, getting an answer right, helping a classmate, simply attending. At other times, a different noise erupts when she’s deducting points. Maybe a kid wasn’t listening or following instructions. Maybe two students got into a tiff. 

Kids with lots of Dojo points can exchange them for prizes such as a gift card to Chick-fil-a. These incentive systems, Ms. A says, help reinforce the behaviors and habits – from respecting others’ physical space to coming to class on a consistent basis – that many students failed to learn because of remote schooling.

Kids’ attention spans have shrunk

Ashley and her classmates at Cora Kelly are in math class with the other third grade teacher. An assistant is out, the teacher announces, so the kids have to work independently while she consults with small groups. 

Today’s lesson is on imperial measuring units for liquids – gallons, quarts, pints, cups – and the teacher says she has a story that will help them memorize valuable information for their upcoming state math tests. The story is called The Kingdom of Gallon, she explains: The kingdom has four queens – in other words, four quarts. Each queen has a prince and a princess – two pints. Each prince or princess has two cats – two cups. 

Kids proceed to cut and paste pictures of different items – a gallon of paint, a carton of milk – onto papers with labels for the unit. Many, including Ashley, are distracted. She spins her notebook around a pencil. One of her knees bobbles from left to right. She gets up to tap a pencil on the table, to the projector to wave her hand under the camera. She yawns and plays with her shoe. 

Teachers and parents nationwide report kids’ attention spans are even shorter since the pandemic, perhaps in part because it led to unprecedented amounts of screen time among children . Educators strive to make lessons engaging but kids can’t always concentrate, especially when there’s only one adult in the classroom.  

Ashley pastes an image of a large water bottle under the wrong label – gallon when it should be quart. She quickly realizes it’s a mistake and tries to unstick the image. Ashley, who in her spare time loves drawing and making jewelry and collecting rocks, is careful to reposition the square so it doesn’t cover the face of a girl displayed on the worksheet. 

No multiplication charts allowed

Mr. LaFleur tells the class they'll review skills for a state math exam that will cover multiplying, long division and fractions. Jada Wilson groans when he says they can’t use multiplication charts on the test.

Jada, 10, has improved on fractions and expanded division this year but worries how she’ll do without the aid. She began fourth grade with the skills of a kid halfway through second grade, LaFleur said, but has made up most of that ground. 

Jada’s progress is an exception: Other students’ scores moved backward mid-year. 

“I really questioned myself and my teaching. It can’t get any worse than that feeling. But it helps to look at students like Jada who’ve grown each time,” LaFleur says. 

I really questioned myself and my teaching. It can’t get any worse than that feeling. But it helps to look at students like Jada who’ve grown each time.

Missing class instead of making up for lost time

As Mr. LaFleur’s class begins a reading lesson at Nystrom, several seats are empty. One of them belongs to Jayceon Davis. 

Jayceon’s mom, Georgina Medrano, works nights and occasionally gets home at 2 a.m. Sometimes she dozes off after waking her kids, and they don’t make it to school on time. Jayceon said he is sometimes confused doing his homework because he misses the lessons and hasn’t turned much of it in. 

For kids who are already behind this school year, every minute of learning this year was critical, but far more for students who missed more school days than before the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism – generally when kids miss more than 10% of the school year – increased in more than 70% of schools nationwide last school year, federal data shows.

Jayceon began the year with low test scores in reading and math, unbeknownst to Medrano, who says she’s frustrated no one told her about it at the beginning of the school year. “He reads to me at home, so I don’t understand how he’s behind,” she says.

Medrano says she also knew nothing about Jayceon’s missing assignments until March, when she got a text from LaFleur, who says he tried several times early in the school year to call Jayceon’s mom about the homework with no success. Then he gave up, hoping she would see notes sent through the school’s online messaging system. She, like many parents this year, didn’t have a real sense of how their kids were doing in school.

Reading, writing and riding

Ashley, like many kids in her class, has never ridden a bike without training wheels. Today in P.E. class, she and the other novices learn on a special bike designed without pedals. The purpose: to learn how to balance.

It takes a while, but before the end of class Ashley, her long curls streaming behind her, manages to glide for 10 seconds without touching her feet to the ground. She graduates to the stationary bike.  

She’s thrilled.

It may have nothing to do with phonics or probability or photosynthesis, but this learning matters, too. It’s the kind of lesson that was impossible to replicate during the pandemic, and one that students seem to enjoy most. 

Turkeys and monkeys

It’s just before recess and lunch in Ms. A’s class. She issues constant reminders to pay attention and be quiet. Yet some students lie on the ground, chit-chatting. Others make animal noises, gobbling like a turkey and grunting like a monkey. 

Ms. A moves her magnet on the classroom’s mood chart to “annoyed.”

Eventually she says to the group: “ I think we need to refresh. Everyone’s a little tired. And it’s Fri-Yay! But we are here to learn.” 

One boy sneaks out to get a pack of Gushers candy from his backpack hanging near the classroom door. With a smirk, Ms. A orders him to hand the gummies over, saying she doesn’t want him to get a sugar high. 

It’s the kind of thing she’s now able to brush off, a skill she didn’t have as a new teacher. She ignores children who are bickering, keeping her voice gentle and smooth as she delivers instructions. 

Despite all the distractions, she successfully engages most of the children in a game that quizzes them on their reading skills. 

Phonics time

Gathered at a half-moon-shaped table in the back of Lisa Cay's third grade classroom at Sleepy Hollow Elementary in Falls Church, Virginia, four students sound out rhyming words – search and perch, dead and lead – as they review phonics skills ahead of the state's reading tests. It's one of countless intensive phonics sessions these and other elementary schoolers have had this school year amid a renewed push for a more scientific approach to reading instruction partly in response to learning gaps deepened by the pandemic . 

Mrs. Cay, 58, then passes each student a copy of “The Wump World,” about creatures who live on an imaginary planet. One by one, they read aloud with the help of Mrs. Cay, who on a small white board, writes words they stumble over – “broad,” for example, and “chief.” After each passage, she reviews the problem word with them. The room is quiet with the exception of this group’s hushed voices, their peers reading independently elsewhere. 

Mrs. Cay hopes the district’s greater emphasis on phonics – and its distancing from an approach that focuses on helping kids dissect a text’s meaning without first showing them how to sound out words – helps boost Sleepy Hollow kids’ literacy. But “it’s going to take a few years” before the effects kick in, Mrs. Cay says. The local school district adopted the new phonics program last school year and started requiring it in the fall. 

New educators consider leaving

Seated at his desk at lunchtime underneath a pennant of his alma mater, University of California, Berkeley, LaFleur says it could take some students as many as five years to catch up to where they should be. He expects just a fifth of his own students to pass the state math test. LaFleur, 25, came to Nystrom in the 2020-21 school year through Teach for America, an organization that places recent college grads in high-needs classrooms.

“This is the only normal I’ve ever known,” he said.

But LaFleur recently decided he wants out. 

Teacher turnover has increased in recent years: More teachers left their jobs in at least eight states after last school year, and educator turnover was at its highest point this year than in the past five years, data shows.

LaFleur hopes he’ll get the new job for which he’s being considered. Otherwise he will return next year to Nystrom, as he wrote in his journal, to face “the same problems, move through the same cycles, and feel the same feelings.”

‘It’s been a long day’

Principal Crews planned an end-of-day assembly for all of Cora Kelly’s students about simple machines such as wheels, levers and pulleys. Given the day’s nonstop rain, which forced kids to have indoor recess, they’re in need of something fun and to channel their energy. But the traveling troupe scheduled to perform at the assembly is running late. 

Whipping out her walkie-talkie, she tells school leaders to prepare to pivot if the troupe doesn’t arrive in time before dismissal. Crews then unzips her black fanny pack – filled with Band-Aids and plastic gloves and Cora Kelly-themed play cash – and pulls out a bottle of Excedrin. Crews takes two. “It’s been a long day,” she says.

Catching up on reading time lost

During a class read along of “Esperanza Rising” for the Spanish portion of Ms. G’s class, students erupt in debate about whether Esperanza’s mother should marry for stability. Valeria Escobedo Martinez, 9, shouts “This is like a telenovela!” The scene reminds her of a TV show she watches at home with her mom, she says.

Even though Valeria says Ms. G’s classroom can be too loud, classroom discussion during reading lessons has helped her make up for reading time she and other kids lost out on during the pandemic. 

“I think I’m still leveling up,” she says. Ms. G says “she’s close” to meeting expectations for reading in English and may shed her “English learner” designation next year..

Ms. G is familiar with students who are behind on reading. She spends most school mornings teaching fourth, fifth and sixth graders how to read words using phonics, which is new to Downer this year. 

Intervention time

It’s time for Ms. A’s students to break out into small classes – enrichment for students who are advanced and intervention for those who are behind. Ashley and about half a dozen of her peers head to reading intervention class, which she spends laughing along with her peers at the teachers’ jokes, earnestly scanning her dictionary and reciting lines from a passage during a group read-aloud. At one point during the read-aloud, she notices the teacher accidentally skipped a paragraph. The teacher commends Ashley for noticing – what if, she asks, I had skipped a paragraph while taking the state reading test? 

Later, as kids independently fill out worksheets, Ashley erects her dictionary as a privacy shield. She doesn’t want others to copy her answers.

Ashley wasn’t always this confident. She needs glasses and while she proudly wears a pair of pink frames now, during the pandemic her vision problems went undiagnosed. Schools usually provide vision screenings but they were one of the services that went away with COVID closures. Her inability to see the screen and understand homework left her feeling frustrated and defiant. 

‘Never going back to normal’

Maria Bustos picks up her son Erick from Ms. G’s class. Pre-pandemic, Bustos may have spent the afternoon on Downer’s campus, helping her son’s teachers or planning a school event with fellow parents. Now, lingering pandemic restrictions don’t allow for her to be as active in the school community as she used to be.

“I feel like we're never going to go back to normal – and not just in schools but in everything and everywhere,” Bustos says. “We used to do a Halloween parade, and even celebrate kids' birthdays by bringing pizza." 

She is optimistic about being able to volunteer next year, though, given she was able to attend Erick’s music performance on campus at the end of the school year and an in-class party three days before the end of school in Ms. G’s classroom. 

I feel like we’re never going to go back to normal – and not just in schools but in everything and everywhere.

Leadership turnover creates further challenges

As the new leader of her school, Ruby Gonzalez, 61, is in the midst of two separate video calls in her office: one about the education plan for a student with disabilities and another that includes other school administrators.

She took over when Downer’s longtime principal, Chris Read, found out he had colon cancer. Read began chemotherapy in March and took a six-month leave to avoid other sickness. After Principal Gonzalez filled in, she tapped Ms. G to take over given her past experience as a vice principal. Ms. G lasted for two days before deciding she didn’t want to abandon her fourth graders. “The kids notice when I’m gone,” she says.

She still helps out often.

Two other substitute principals stepped in months before the end of the school year. One quit after a few days. The other comes a few days a week to help out. It’s unclear who will lead next year. Once Read returns from leave, he will have a new job overseeing visual and performing arts education districtwide, a role he’s long wanted.

Recent data shows that more principals last year quit their jobs than early on in the pandemic.

“This has been one of the most difficult years I think; even more than last year,” Ms. G says. “There’s multiple things: Our principal is out and Ruby’s trying to do the best she can. … And there are new things we're all trying to learn. On top of that there's more work and discipline. The kids are feeling it.”

Not enough time

It’s time for kids in Cora Kelly’s after-school tutoring to be dismissed, but Ashley doesn’t want to leave. She’s eager to master the skill of reading an analog clock. She begs her tutor, the same math teacher she had earlier in the day, to stay longer. 

“I love, love, love learning,” Ashley says.

But it turns out her school year is ending earlier than she may have liked, too, much to Principal Crews’ frustration. Ashley and her family will be traveling to her mom’s home country of El Salvador a week before the last day of school. Experts say absenteeism remains widespread in elementary schools, whose students’ attendance relies on their parents’ decisions and schedules. 

Giving in to a calculator

Jada is stationed in the school cafeteria trying to solve a multiplication problem while she and her younger sister wait for their mother to pick them up from Nystrom’s after school program. She sighs, leans her face on her fist on the cafeteria table and says, “This is too hard!” A few seconds later, she pulls out a calculator to solve the problem.

Despite her growth this year – end-of-year math tests show Jada jumped from having middle-of-second-grade skills to working at a mid-fourth-grade level – she and many classmates are behind where they should be.

Her mom, Michaela Alexander, rushes into the cafeteria to get the girls. Alexander tells Jada she isn’t too worried she’s behind on math: She understands Jada had a very different experience from a lot of kids in elementary school who learned in a classroom setting uninterrupted by a global pandemic. She has faith that the teachers at Nystrom will help her catch up. 

‘She’s better than me’

At her small white trailer in a mobile home park in San Pablo, Valeria, her mom, Maira Martinez Perez, and her grandma, who is visiting from Mexico, sit on separate benches next to each other in a tidy combined living room and kitchen. It’s the same home in which Valeria would pull out her Google Chromebook each morning, log onto school and start the day with jumping jacks to loosen up, as instructed by her teacher, when school shifted online.

Just as Downer pivoted to remote learning, Valeria’s mother lost her job cleaning at another school. Now her mother is working again, and though a kid herself, Valeria has taken on some of the care of her younger sister Itzel. Valeria is sometimes interrupted by the 5-year-old when she tries to read at home.

Itzel peeks out from the only bedroom in the home closed off by a sliding door. 

At school, “she’s better than me,” Valeria says of her sister. 

No pandemic interrupted Itzel’s schooling.

Story editing by Nirvi Shah

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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Technology in the Classroom & The Benefits for K-12 Schools

Rebecca Torchia is a web editor for  EdTech: Focus on K–12 . Previously, she has produced podcasts and written for several publications in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and her hometown of Pittsburgh.

Technology integration is no longer about whether tech belongs in classrooms. In today’s education landscape, it pertains to how technology is chosen and used for learning.

Schools have received waves of government funding for educational technology. Administrators and IT leadership still have  until September 2022 and September 2023  to obligate ESSER I and ESSER II funds, respectively. To get the best return on investment with this funding, districts must ensure technology integration is done effectively.

Students benefit from technology integration when it is done well. It can lead to a more equitable educational experience and give students the tools to be successful in life.

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What Does Technology in The Classroom Look Like Today?

Technology integration is the use of technology in teaching and learning to achieve academic goals.

“I don’t use tech unless it solves a problem I have in the classroom,” says Lisa Highfill, a technology integration specialist at  Pleasanton Virtual Academy  in California.

For example, Highfill says, she’ll use a  Jamboard  where students can post their responses instead of calling on them one at a time. “Then, when they’re all quiet, what are they doing? They’re reading each other’s comments.”

Meaningful tech integration should be done thoughtfully to enhance a learning experience. “You don’t want to use technology just for technology’s sake,” says Melissa Lim, a technology integration specialist at Oregon’s  Portland Public Schools . “We recommend using the Triple E Framework as a simple tool to help determine if it’s worth using technology or if you’re just using it as a substitute.”

The Triple E Framework  was developed by Liz Kolb, a clinical associate professor of education and learning technologies at the University of Michigan. When K–12 IT leaders evaluate new tech based on this framework, they can determine “how well technology tools integrated into lessons are helping students engage in, enhance and extend learning goals,” according to Kolb’s website for the framework.

“It’s all about the learning first,” Lim says.

Why Is Integrating Technology Important in Education?

Technology integration in Education is important for multiple reasons. It makes learning more equitable for K–12 students, and — when used in lower grades — it sets them up for success in school and, moving forward, in their careers.

“If you’re a teacher who doesn’t use a lot of technology, your students aren’t getting equitable access to learning experiences that another teacher who uses technology is giving to their students,” Lim says.

Melissa Lim Technology Integration Specialist, Portland Public Schools

Now that many students have devices and access to technology, educators and school leaders must work to  narrow the digital divide  through equity of use. If students aren’t exposed to technology and taught how to use it, they will fall behind their peers.

“Educators should make sure logging in is a really easy, smooth process,” Highfill says. “Once I get everyone logged in, the No. 1 thing I have to get students to learn how to do is share their screen.”

This not only helps her work through problems with students, she says, but also helps students take  a more active role in their learning . Students will find new ways to achieve a goal or manipulate a technology and can show the class — and the teacher — how they’ve accomplished it by sharing their screen. “You empower them and put them in the teaching role,” Highfill adds.

What Are the Benefits of Technology for Students?

Through technology, schools can support all students. There are roughly 60 grade school students and nearly 250 high school students enrolled at Pleasanton Virtual Academy. “I’m so excited our district put in that investment,” Highfill says. “We’re a public school virtual academy. They invested in a quality virtual academy to meet the needs of all students.”

Even students who are learning in an in-person environment are  using technology in their daily lives . Integrating it into the classroom gives them an opportunity to learn to use tech in a meaningful way.

READ MORE:   Build the themes of digital citizenship into instruction and business planning.

“If you have the skills and know how to research and find information and discern whether that information is true or not, that’s going to help you not only in school with your schoolwork, but also with life in general,” Lim says.

“I watch the kids, and they’re very addicted to their devices,” says Highfill. “So, it’s my new teaching point: How can you take a digital diet, and how can you identify when tech is not doing good things for you?”

Highfill says that anytime there’s a fear about introducing technology to the classroom, educators should use that. “We have to teach students how to take care of themselves if they’re going to use technology,” she says.

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Articles on Elementary school

Displaying 1 - 20 of 41 articles.

I spent a decade helping Afghan girls make educational progress − and now the Taliban are using these 3 reasons to keep them out of school

Enayat Nasir , University at Albany, State University of New York

Teaching cursive handwriting to young children? Here’s how they learn, and resources for instruction

Hetty Roessingh , University of Calgary

How educator Gloria Jean Merriex used dance, drills and devotion to turn around a failing elementary school in a year

Boaz Dvir , Penn State

How counting by 10 helps children learn about the meaning of numbers

Helena Osana , Concordia University ; Jairo A. Navarrete-Ulloa , Universidad de O’Higgins (Chile) , and Vera Wagner , Concordia University

Sci-fi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science

Emily Midkiff , University of North Dakota

Year-round school: Difference-maker or waste of time?

Daniel H. Robinson , University of Texas at Arlington and Nicole Miller , Mississippi State University

Why B.C. has ended letter grades for younger students

Victor Brar , University of British Columbia

Cursive handwriting is back in Ontario schools. Its success depends on at least 5 things

How Canadian and Chinese teachers’ reciprocal learning can benefit students

Chenkai Chi , University of Windsor and Shijing Xu , University of Windsor

How teachers can stay true to history without breaking new laws that restrict what they can teach about racism

W. Fitzhugh Brundage , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Newly linked data can reveal academic development from kindergarten to high school in 150,000 students

Jeanne Sinclair , Memorial University of Newfoundland ; Magdalena Janus , McMaster University , and Scott Davies , University of Toronto

This course uses ‘Abbott Elementary’ to examine critical issues in urban education

Sara Jones , Illinois State University

Do elementary school students do better when taught by teachers of the same race or ethnicity? New research finds: Not that much

Paul L. Morgan , Penn State and Eric Hengyu Hu , Penn State

‘Numberless math’ gets kids thinking about and visualizing algebra

Marc Husband , St. Francis Xavier University ; Evan Throop Robinson , St. Francis Xavier University , and Matthew Little , St. Francis Xavier University

First grader who shot teacher in Virginia is among the youngest school shooters in US history

David Riedman , University of Central Florida

Sci-fi books for young readers often omit children of color from the future

Disparities in advanced math and science skills begin by kindergarten

Paul L. Morgan , Penn State

Even school boards are now experiencing severe political polarization

Sachin Maharaj , L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa ; Stephanie Tuters , University of Toronto , and Vidya Shah , York University, Canada

Why elementary and high school students should learn computer programming

Hugo G. Lapierre , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Patrick Charland , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

If I could change one thing in education: Community-school partnerships would be top priority

Tanitiã Munroe , University of Toronto

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Louisiana will require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom

The Associated Press

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday. Above, workers repaint a Ten Commandments billboard off of Interstate 71 near Chenoweth, Ohio, on Nov. 7, 2023. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor.

The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

Opponents questioned the law’s constitutionality and vowed to challenge it in court . Proponents said the the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.”

WWNO: Louisiana will face lawsuit over Ten Commandments school displays

The posters, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.

Under the law, state funds will not be used to implement the mandate. The posters would be paid for through donations.

The law also “authorizes” but does not require the display of other items in K-12 public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America’s “First Constitution"; the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory — in the present day Midwest — and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union.

Not long after the governor signed the bill into law at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette on Wednesday, civil rights groups and organizations that want to keep religion out of government promised to file a lawsuit challenging it.

The law prevents students from getting an equal education and will keep children who have different beliefs from feeling safe at school, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation said in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon.

“Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate,” the groups said.

The controversial law, in a state ensconced in the Bible Belt, comes during a new era of conservative leadership in Louisiana under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January. The GOP holds a supermajority in the Legislature, and Republicans hold every statewide elected position, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda.

Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has succeeded in making the bills law.

Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.

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All Louisiana public school classrooms now required to display the Ten Commandments

Louisiana has become the first US state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, in the latest move by new Republican Governor Jeff Landry.

The legislation requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in "large, easily readable font" in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

The posters must be in place in classrooms by the start of next year.

They will each be paired with a four-paragraph "context statement" describing how the Ten Commandments "were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries".

'Taking sides'

Opponents questioned the law's constitutionality and vowed to challenge it in court. 

The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation argue the law prevents students from getting an equal education and will keep children who have different beliefs from feeling safe at school.

"Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition," the groups said in a joint statement.

"The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate."

Proponents say the Ten Commandments are not solely religious, but are also of historical significance as foundational texts of the United States government.

Similar bills have been proposed in other states including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. 

However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has succeeded in making the bills law.

In 1980, the US Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the US Constitution, which says Congress can "make no law respecting an establishment of religion". 

The court found the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.

More powers under the law

The new law comes after Mr Landry replaced two-term Democratic governor John Bel Edwards in January 2024. Republicans now hold every statewide elected position in Louisiana.

The law also "authorises" but does not require the display of other items in public schools.

These items include The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America's "First Constitution".

They also include the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory — in the present-day Midwest — and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union.

State funds will not be used to implement the mandate, with the posters to be paid for through donations. 

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Nyc jewish family pummeled at 5th-grade commencement by attendees shouting ‘free palestine,’ mom says.

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A Jewish mom and her husband were attacked and beaten at a Brooklyn elementary school graduation by an Arabic-speaking family — who taunted them with shouts of “Free Palestine!” “Gaza is Ours!” and “Death to Israel!” she told The Post.

The mayhem erupted at PS 682 in Gravesend just after the school’s fifth-grade graduation — which was themed, ironically, “All you need is love.”

Instead, the Jewish woman’s husband was thrown to the ground by members of the other family. One man put him in a chokehold, he said. Others grabbed his legs as they kicked and punched him. One woman repeatedly whacked him with the sharp heel of a black stiletto, the mom told police.

“They targeted my family because we are Jewish,” said the mother, whose 10-year-old twins witnessed the assaults.

“A graduation event that was supposed to be joyous and memorable turned into a violent and traumatizing one.”

It was one of the worst outbursts of antisemitism in NYC public schools since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel and war in Gaza, because it escalated beyond words, said Tova Plaut, a city educator and advocate for Jewish peers.

“We consistently warned that tolerating overtly antisemitic views would create a toxic environment for Jewish students and families, inevitably leading to physical violence,” Plaut said. “This has now occurred.”

The Jewish mom, Lana, and her husband Johan, a Dominican who is Catholic, recounted their horrific experience to The Post in frustration because the NYPD did not classify the incident as a hate crime.

But after the couple urged the NYPD to reconsider, a spokesperson said Saturday, “The Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.”

The Post is withholding the couple’s last names to protect their children’s privacy and safety.

The graduation ceremony itself was uneventful, but Lana’s mother was upset when one student marched across the stage wearing his graduate cap marked  “Free Palestine” and waving a small Palestinian flag. The grandma walked out.

A school administrator told another parent that the city Department of Education’s legal staff had okayed the display as an expression of free speech.

After the event concluded, Lana and Johan started to take pictures with their two kids in front of a PS 682 banner and balloons when relatives of the boy with the flag tried to push them out of the way, she said.

“We told them there was space for both families,” Lana said. “An older man turned to us and said ‘Free Palestine!’ for no reason. My husband told him this was not the time or place for that but the man cursed at him in Arabic, and shouted, “Free Palestine, Gaza is Ours, Death to Israel.”

While Johan argued with the older man and told him to back off, another man “just came out of nowhere, punched me in the head and it was a scuffle,” he said. “From there, I don’t remember, because there was so much going on and so many people on top of me. Then I was put on a chokehold. Somebody was holding my leg. It was chaotic.”

Their 16-year- old son tried to help his dad, but he was punched in the face.

Lana walked toward her son and managed to record a glimpse of the scene with her cell phone — capturing a group holding her husband down, jostling and loud shrieks — before she, too, was assaulted. 

“A woman from the group came up from behind me, pulled me by the hair, and knocked me down on the ground, shouting, ‘I will kill you,’” she said.

Lana screamed, “Call the cops! Call the cops!”

No security was on site. Two male teachers rushed over to break up the attack. 

Johan was taken to Maimonides Medical Center with scrapes, bruises and swelling on his head, face and body, photos show. Lana suffered a gash on her leg. Their teen son had a bloody nose. 

Cops made one arrest:  Ez-Al Dean Bazar, 26, who punched and dragged Johan, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. The complaint makes no mention of his motive.

Bazar was released on his own recognizance. He and his lawyer did not return messages seeking comment.

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The NYPD did not call the assault a hate crime, telling Lana “nothing on my body says I am Jewish,” she said. 

But she and her kids are well-known in the school as Jewish. The twins proudly displayed their Jewish – and Dominican – roots on self-portraits displayed at a recent art show. Lana did not know the other family, but her son was in a class with their son last year.

DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer refused to say how school officials classified the fracas.

“Graduations should be times of celebration and joy, and we strongly denounce anyone who acts in a violent or aggressive way during such events,” he said.

But he shifted blame to Lana and Johan as well: “Initial reports we have received from multiple witnesses indicate that both families engaged in aggressive behavior, but we are still investigating the matter and are simultaneously engaging with families as we work towards a resolution.”

Lana disputed the statement, insisting no one in her family provoked the attack, and that school staff told the arresting officer that members of the other family were the aggressors.

“My husband was trying to de-escalate the situation,” she said. “The DOE is trying to sweep it under the rug to avoid further scrutiny of this heinous antisemitic act.” 

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Public funding, private education.

We explain a major change in U.S. public education.

By Dana Goldstein

An overwhelming majority of American students attend public schools. But that number is falling. In part, that’s because in more than half of states, parents can now use public money to educate their kids — at home, online, in private schools. This year, a million students used some kind of private education voucher, more than double the figure from four years earlier, according to new research from EdChoice, a group that supports private-school choice and tracks the sector.

The result is a growing movement of choose-your-own-adventure education. Parents are permitted to find any program that they think fits their beliefs and their kids’ needs. Yet it’s unclear how, or whether, accountability or standards will be enforced outside traditional schools.

What’s driving this change? The pandemic prompted many families to reconsider how their children learn. Republican lawmakers embraced private-school choice as part of a broader push for parental rights. (They also see the issue as a way to appeal to young parents — often Black and Latino — who are critical of how public schools serve their children.) And teachers are reporting intense burnout, with some leaving public schools to open small businesses that can accept these vouchers.

I wrote about these “microschools” in a story The Times published this morning . In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why parents are opting out of public schools — and what it might mean for how this country educates all of its children.

What’s the appeal?

I recently spent a week in the Atlanta area, talking to parents who pulled their children out of public schools to attend microschools. Some have as few as six students. While most are run by career educators, they don’t have to be: The sector is unregulated, and anyone can open a microschool.

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