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Lower education is correlated with lower labor income, so children in grades K-12 who have been in virtual schooling over the past year are likely to suffer permanent reductions in lifetime income, according to a new study by the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) titled “COVID-19: Cost of Virtual Schooling by Race and Income.”
Those scars will begin hurting years later when Black and poor students enter the job market. “If in the future, the world and the U.S. economy are going to be creating more technical and knowledge-based jobs, then these kids that are missing out on their education will lose out on being able to get those higher paying jobs,” said Efraim Berkovich, PWBM’s director of computational dynamics, in an interview on the Wharton Business Daily radio show on SiriusXM. (Listen to the podcast above.) Berkovich directed the PWBM study with research associates Maddison Erbabian and Youran Wu.
PWBM analyzed data on the school districts of Philadelphia and 63 surrounding suburbs to make its case that schools in its dataset with more Black students are less likely to reopen with in-person instruction relative to schools with more white students. The divergences PWBM projected in income losses are pronounced along both and income and racial lines.
According to the study, by March 2021, Black students in grades K-5 would have incurred a 11.9% loss in lifetime income from school closures, compared to a loss of 10.4% for white students. Students from poor families also get the worst outcomes. K-5 students in the lowest family income quintile would have lost about 11.3% of lifetime income compared to a 10.7% loss for those in the highest income quintile, the study stated. A 10% loss in lifetime income translates into about $120,000 in present-value terms, said Berkovich. “That’s a large amount of future pain that we’re imposing on our children and on our economy as well, because these kids are not going to be as productive.”
“The ones that really need the in-person time are the ones who are not getting it.” –Efraim Berkovich
Studies have shown that “virtual learning is just not as effective as in-person learning, … and gives you almost no improvement in math skills,” Berkovich said. The PWBM brief cited a Stanford University study on the effectiveness of online K-12 charter schools, which found complete learning loss in math, but only partial learning loss in reading when instruction is fully online. It also cited an OECD study published in fall 2020 that estimated that current students in 18 states and Washington, D.C., have lost between 6% to 9% of future lifetime labor income from the school shutdowns.
Berkovich noted that Philadelphia schools have been mostly closed to in-person learning over the past year, whereas the suburban schools have opened up to a small extent. By looking at the demographic composition of each school district, PWBM was able to calculate the amount of in-person learning that school children of different groups effectively receives, he said.
In the school districts PWBM studies, it found that those in Philadelphia’s suburbs “show very little difference in terms of openness across both different economic groups and different racial groups,” said Berkovich. By contrast, urban school districts “have been substantially more closed,” he added.
“The home environment makes a huge difference and that will have a differential impact on who is being harmed by these school closure policies,” said Berkovich. “Higher income students and higher performing students aren’t hurt very much.” He pointed to those outcomes in a study covering the school system in Fairfax, Va., noting the county’s wealth. With distance learning, low-performing students stopped being engaged and dropped out, and that showed in their lower grades, he said. “So, the ones that really need the in-person time are the ones who are not getting it.”
Guideposts for Policymakers
The study is the latest of PWBM’s efforts to determine “how to make a good policy decision about reopening schools,” said Berkovich. It allowed PWBM to “calculate as best we can the cost that we think is imposed on students,” he added. “It gives policymakers a way to try to balance the cost of new COVID infections versus the cost that we’re imposing on our children.”
PWBM’s newest estimates peg the average cost of a new infection at $41,180 through January 2021 — roughly 8 times the average estimated $4,972 cost of an influenza infection. That cost estimate included the “total value-of-life, medical, and productivity costs.” It is far lower than estimates of $300,000 in the early phase of the pandemic last spring, after which treatment outcomes have gotten better and mortality rates have fallen, Berkovich noted.
Berkovich explained how one year of lost learning with virtual schooling would have lifetime impacts. “If you missed out on algebra when it was taught in seventh grade, then you’re going to be struggling [with it] in eighth grade and in ninth grade; that’s going to be with you through college,” he said. “These losses are very difficult to make up without some massive policy intervention right now. The longer we wait, the more these kids are going to fall behind. It’s going to be very difficult to catch somebody up when they’ve been behind for years.”
“These losses are very difficult to make up without some massive policy intervention right now. The longer we wait, the more these kids are going to fall behind.” –Efraim Berkovich
For sure, school students may make up some of that lost education in later years. “[But] the question is, how much, and what is being done or discussed in policy circles to try to address some of those things,” said Berkovich. “I don’t know if that means that we should be talking about a longer school year or summer school or other policy elements that can be [considered] to try to make up some of this learning loss. But ignoring it is potentially problematic for the children and for the economy.”
Berkovich pointed out that, as a rule, PWBM steers clear of making policy recommendations. “I’m merely saying that we are looking at a hole that that has been dug and we need to think about how to address it,” he said. Funding, for instance, will be an important part of any mix of solutions. “We’re spending a lot of money on COVID-19 stimulus. Are we spending enough on education measures? If we are going to expand the school year or expand summer school for almost everyone, that is going to come with significant cost. I don’t have answers or policy proposals, but these are things that need to be thought about.”
In future studies, PWBM plans to use its models to assess the long-run economic impacts of virtual learning for the country, including GDP growth and productivity.
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3 Comments So Far
Eric Klieber
The opening sentence in this article is an example of the fallacy of composition: attributing to the whole the property of the parts. The premise, “Lower education is correlated with lower labor income,” is certainly true when only a part of the population receives lower education, but the conclusion, “so children in grades k-12 who have been in virtual schooling for the past year are likely to suffer permanent reductions in lifetime income,” does not follow logically if the whole population receives lower education due to virtual schooling. It may or may not be true. If this logical fallacy is incorporated into the PWBM programming, it will likely produce fallacious results.
Anumakonda Jagadeesh
Excellent.
Virtual school
An online school (virtual school or e-school or cyber-school) teaches students entirely or primarily online or through the Internet. It has been defined as “education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students. Online education exists all around the world and is used for all levels of education (K-12 High school/secondary school, college, or graduate school). This type of learning enables the individuals to earn transferable credits, take recognized examinations, or advance to the next level of education over the Internet.
Virtual education is most commonly used at the high school or college level. Students who are of the age 30 or older, tend to study online programs at higher rates. This group represents 41% of the online education population, while 35.5% of students ages 24–29 and 24.5% of students ages 15–23 participate in virtual education.
Virtual education is becoming increasingly used worldwide. There are currently more than 4,700 colleges and universities that provide online courses to their students. In 2015, more than 6 million students were taking at least one course online, this number grew by 3.9% from the previous year. 29.7% of all higher education students are taking at least one distance course. The total number of students studying on campus exclusively dropped by 931,317 people between the years 2012 and 2015. Experts say that because the number of students studying at the college level is growing, there will also be an increase in the number of students enrolled in distance learning.
Instructional models vary, ranging from distance learning types which provide study materials for independent self-paced study, to live, interactive classes where students communicate with a teacher in a class group lesson. Class sizes range widely from a small group of 6 pupils or students to hundreds in a virtual school.
The courses that are independent and self-paced are called asynchronous courses. Typically for this type of learning, the students are given the assignments and information and are expected to complete the assignments by the due date. This is done on their own time. There is no scheduled time when the class meets. Usually, the only interactions that take place are through discussion boards, blogs, and wikis.
On the other hand, synchronous online courses happen in real-time. The instructor and students all interact online at the same time. This is done either through text, video, or audio chat. Therefore these lessons are socially constructed. In addition to the scheduled class time, there are usually additional assignments to complete. A key to keeping Kindergartners engaged in distance learning can be challenging. Individualizing lessons and giving mini breaks can help students stay engaged during short synchronous sessions. As an educator you have to find creative ways to keep children attention on the screen especially since they’re in the comfort of their home with all their toys and all the other luxury’s within the house they desire. It is hard to keep their attention in the classroom so virtual learning now becomes extremely harder.
Secondary school age students have to be extremely disciplined and focused in order to be successful in virtual learning. Just like being at an actual school, these pre-teens and teenagers have to make sure they are presentable/looking good before logging onto their classes and have to greet all of their friends and turn off their cellphones before the lesson begins because that will be a big distraction for them just as it would in the classroom. Some of the same problems that exist at school have the potential of existing at home with virtual school.
Hybrid, sometimes also called blended, courses are when students learn and interact both in-person and online. Theses classes meet in person during the semester in addition to computer-based communication.
Virtual school technology
Virtual classrooms are made possible through the use of educational technology with the help of the internet. The internet itself can be credited on what enabled modern distance learning to be developed. The internet can allow the virtual student to have access to resources such as virtual test taking functions, systems that aide coursework to include electronic reading materials, podcasts to allow the student to have easy access to the lectures and chatrooms. Virtual school is no longer just for high school or college students. Today it has become necessary for all students to be taught virtually due to the current pandemic COVID 19 we have been plagued with. Before younger children were engaged in websites like Hooked on Phonics, ABC Teach, Sesame Street, Leap Pad, and ABC Mouse to name a few which were interactive learning sites which did repeatitive rote memory learning for children through dancing and singing. Now teachers have to use State approve curriculum based websites which work through modules and have accountability for students. Even students as young as two who are enrolled in programs such as HeadStart are required to reach certain benchmarks by a certain age according to the State standards. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States began to encourage social distancing in the education system. One use of technology that was found to be resourceful in the collaboration of students and teachers in virtual learning was the use of video conferencing. The utilization of web videoconferencing allows a student to communicate virtually with their teacher or any other mentor through the use of the apps Zoom and Cisco WebEx. Zoom is a web video conferencing app that is free of download on a mobile device, laptop, or desktop. Through the use of zoom, one on one or group meetings can occur between the students and teachers virtually. This app allows the teacher to share their screen to show exactly what they are teaching and even gives the option to screen record their lectures to make it accessible to the student for future use as a resource. Cisco Webex offers a lot of the same features as Zoom such as multiple users being on at once, video connection, and screen-sharing. To engage virtual students even further, a process known as gamification can be used to teach a student learning material in a form of a game to bring more enjoyment in a student’s learning experience. Secondlife, an online virtual world, is a type of gamification system that is used for online educational purposes. Secondlife can be used as a substitute for face to face learning. It has qualities that resembles an in person curriculum such as class discussions, participation in lectures, and completing assignments. Gamification can also serve as an aide to increase a student’s intrinsic motivation. The use of rewarding points while a student is using a gamification system can enhance internal motivation and motivate the student to accomplish learning goals from the game’s objective.
Pricing and location
Where online methods are integrated with State provision, costs follow state school standards. Otherwise, fees must be met by the student or parents. Many US school districts are now creating their own online services to avoid paying external providers. Such students can graduate from their home district without ever leaving home. In most of these cases, students are given computers, books, and even Internet service to complete coursework from home.
With the resources of the Internet as a library, and the ease of making online study materials, there is usually a comparatively small requirement for textbooks. Most courses will provide electronic materials free of cost, or included in the course fee. Textbooks are most often required for an exam syllabus course.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advocates of online schools and online learning point to a number of advantages:
• Travel is not required, with much greater dependability of lessons. Whether disrupting transport is almost irrelevant (though an area subject to frequent power cuts will suffer consequent disruptions). Similarly, common health disruptions through minor illness or injury will not halt learning, because the physical demands are so much less. Transcripts of lessons can plug short absences.
• Many students who have personal or health conditions that make physical school difficult or impossible can instead learn using virtual educational programs.
• Ideal for individuals and families who need flexible arrangements. However, synchronous learning does impose limits due to time zones, which tend to divide online schools in Europe and Asia from North America.
• The integration of Internet resources provides a huge library of content, and students quickly become adept at online research.
• There is greater flexibility for self-learners or gifted students to explore learning beyond the standard curriculum. Independent-minded students, those with specialist skills and ambitions, can develop at their own preferred pacing using network resources.
• Online schools can be equalizers, as age, appearance, and background are far less obvious. Groups can be categorized by personal ability.
• Students and pupils benefit from exposure to others in different cultures of the world, which enriches understanding of history, geography, religions and politics, and develops social skills.
• Part-time students with jobs or family commitments may benefit from the flexibility of online schedules, as claimed by supporters of virtual education.
• For asynchronous education, a student may study, learn, or do their homework when they have free time. Therefore, this gives the students flexibility with their education.
• It is argued that online learning is more effective and efficient at providing education to a large number of people no matter the physical distance between the students and professors than traditional education.
• There are claims that online education “develops higher-order skills such as collaborating across time and place and solving complex real-world problems” better than in-class learning.
• Students have the ability to avoid the requirement of travelling to a physical school.
• As pointed out by advocates of online schooling, this type of education could be beneficial in rural areas, where the distance between students and educators is vast.
• A student may have the ability to take a course that is not offered at a location near them.
• Some affirm that virtual education is very cost-effective for schools or districts because it allows a teacher to instruct more students than in a face-to-face classroom setting.
• It has been claimed that courses online are less expensive for the students than courses taken in traditional school, college, or university.
• The children grasped an understanding of the tools rather quickly.
• The chat became one of the most used features.
Some disadvantages of the virtual school include:
• Critics argue that students do not interact with their instructors or peers face-to-face, which lends itself to a “lack of socialization” unless supplemented using online groups, or by attending other social activities outside of school.
• A challenge pointed out by critics is that there is an added challenge of staying focused while in the home environment. It has been reported that many students have a difficult time staying on task when participating in learning onlineSome argue that the cost of starting up an online school is expensive.
• As pointed out by opposers of online school, not everyone has access to digital technologies which would prohibit them from attending virtual schools, unless their local libraries or community programs may offer access to computers and research materials.
• An argument identified by critics is that virtual schools are relatively new and because of that there are seldom methods of evaluating their effectiveness in educating their students.
• As claimed in a study done by Eric Bettinger and Susanna Loeb, on average, online students “do substantially worse than students in the same face-to-face course”.Furthermore, students who attend K-12 online consistently perform worse on state tests than their peers in ‘brick and mortar’ environments, even when taking into account prior achievement.
• Critics have pointed out that it is common for technology to be unpredictable, glitch, or not function correctly.
• Some people who oppose virtual education have argued that obtaining a job with an online degree may be harder because potential employers may be sceptical of the credibility of these virtual programs.
• The assignments due for online schooling may not be assessing the ability of the students because many answers can be found on the Internet, as claimed by critics of online schooling.
• Not using the tools as much fearing the student’s utilization would diminish
• The students would type random things ignoring the lesson.
Wikipedia
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Jim Bozin
Simple case of putting the cart before the horse. Time to debate this was before the closed down. Instead of vaccinating the near death 90 somethings, they should have done the schools first. Easy to do and would have a wider impact. But that’s not as attract as Aunt Nellie cooped up for her birthday on the TV news.
What happens when govt’s decide for the people.
CDC has been way off base through out this epidemic. Politics, no masks, then masks, 6′ then no 3′ for convenience, etc. I doubt we’ll learn any lessons for next time. We’re the ultimate in unprepared. They only react to issues and do short term things. About all we can hope for is it gets over as quick as possible.