Coronavirus Cost to our Children

An interesting angle on the Coronavirus and education is the impact that missing so much school has on our children and their future educational outcomes. In New Zealand, there have been mixed responses from teachers, parents and schools regarding how important learning is during the lockdown, but at least we have been able to mitigate the potential damage so far with a providentially placed term 1 holiday.

In the States, the timing of this outbreak could hardly be worse, coming as it does before their long summer break. Every teacher who has taught children for consecutive years knows how much children can lose over the holidays, and some claim it is two to three months of learning. But in the US, this summer break has effectively doubled due to lockdown. Some reports suggest that students could lose an entire academic year of progress.

Joy Pullmann, a correspondent for The Federalist points out the injustice of this.

Our nation’s leaders are demanding that American children pay for this crisis through debt-financed spending, while depriving them of the education they need to make that even remotely possible. Our response to coronavirus is upping our society’s selfish demands that mostly the young pay — mentally, financially, socially, psychologically — for tabs the adults run up. This is not just impractical but immoral. Effectively enslaving voiceless citizens is not a just society’s response to a crisis.

Pullmann makes a good point that is worth considering. Here in New Zealand, we are taking on huge debt as a result of locking down our economy. Will our children bear the brunt of this in both future taxes as well as lower future incomes as a result of lower educational outcomes? Let’s hope not. It’s important that parents, teachers and schools work to ensure that these weeks are not an educational wasteland, but a time of fruitful, albeit unusual learning.

If you’re a parent, and you are worried about what your school is providing during the lockdown, there are plenty of useful sites and Youtube channels you can look into. Take a look at this NZ homeschooling blog, which has a great resource page. If your child is doing high school Mathematics, I highly recommend looking at Eddie Woo’s Youtube channel. He is the best Maths teacher I’ve seen. If you have a child studying Cambridge IGCSE or AS and A level Mathematics, I have set up my own Youtube channel to help support my Cambridge students during the lockdown. And while just doing worksheets isn’t always ideal, Worksheet Works is a fabulous resource which contains a tonne of Mathematics and English language resources which can be fine-tuned to your child’s needs. It also has some really fun puzzles and brain-teasers.

Value for Money?

With all the schools in NZ entering lockdown, it has been interesting to see the reaction of teachers and parents to what is going on. It’s made many consider whether education in New Zealand gives value for money.

Of particular interest to me have been the number of teachers and educational leaders trying to allay the fears of parents. According to some, parents shouldn’t worry too much about trying to ensure their kids are working as normal. I’ve even heard some say things like, “Six weeks of missing school isn’t going to hurt kids.” When interviewed on Seven Sharp, Nigel Latta, a well-known New Zealand psychologist and author, was asked how much school work children needed to do while in lockdown. His answer was none unless the children wanted to. Latta said, “Don’t do it, and it will do them no harm at all.” And when asked about parents who might worry about their children falling behind, he said, “They totally will not fall behind. You absolutely shouldn’t worry about this.”

Well in a sense, I understand the point. In the big scheme of things, four, five or even six weeks of missing school may not make a huge difference, particularly for a child in the primary years, and especially if they come from a loving home with fairly well-educated parents. Latta is right, it’s extremely important for parents to provide a calm and safe environment in these times.

But there’s another perspective. I’m a teacher in an independent school which works on a shoestring budget and must attract and retain paying customers. I’ve taught both primary and secondary students, and I would argue that four weeks do matter. In a well-run classroom, with an enthusiastic and organised expert teacher, four weeks can result in tonnes of learning! Parents who are paying taxes and paying a school to educate their children would not be impressed if a school made little or no progress with their child in half a term.

What if Latta and some New Zealand teachers are correct in saying that four to six weeks missed from school isn’t going to matter? That raises an important question. How important is what teachers are doing in school, if missing six weeks has few implications educationally? If this is true, what kind of value for money are we getting from our public education system? Are teachers just glorified babysitters who enable Mum and Dad to pursue a more comfortable living standard? What sort of educational bang for buck are we getting here?

In New Zealand, education makes up around 18% of New Zealand Government expenditure. That’s a whole lot of our tax dollars being put into the education of children. Given the amount of money spent, are we not entitled to expect some sort of return? What kind of value for money are we getting if 4-6 weeks or between 14 to 22% of a school year can be missed with little to no impact on a child?

If our children can be at home with Mum or Dad, ignore most if not all of their school work, and not be disadvantaged, that really doesn’t paint a flattering picture of what is happening in our schools.

But let’s be honest, not every New Zealand school or teacher would claim to have little to no effect on children in this sort of time frame. Schools vary in impact. Yet it would not be wrong to say that in a number of New Zealand schools children would be better off at home pottering around with Mum or Dad. They would learn more!

If there’s one good thing to come out of this lockdown educationally, it’s been that parents have been able to get a bit more of a handle on what their children are learning at school. A number of parents in my acquaintance have been shocked to learn just how poorly their children are being educated by their local schools.

Perhaps some parents will exit lockdown with a new perspective on education. It’s possible some will see the wasted time and opportunities in their local schools and look at change. Perhaps some will embrace independent education. Maybe others will look at lifestyle and consider whether two incomes are absolutely necessary and whether dialling down living standard expectations might enable them to homeschool. Whatever the case, let’s hope we all come out of this lockdown taking our children’s education more seriously.