A piecemeal approach – #CoveringCOVID19 04/09/2020

This is #CoveringCOVID19, a daily update from The Grade to help education journalists cover the shutdown of the nation’s schools.

THE TOP FIVE

Here are five great education stories about how schools are responding to the COVID-19 crisis:

🏫 After coronavirus unemployment, mother and son sell masks – LA Times (above)

🏫 Why not just cancel school in Houston and make up class time later? Money. – Houston Chronicle

🏫 As remote learning ramps up in Chicago, a high-stakes question: Should students be learning anything new? – Chalkbeat

🏫 Coronavirus school closures stress out parents, students – Los Angeles Times

🏫 ‘We have kiddos regressing’: What shuttered schools mean for students with disabilities in Michigan – Chalkbeat

PIECEMEAL APPROACH

Everyone’s doing their best, especially those with kids at home. Some of you are being pulled off of education to write other stories. As I keep saying, there really just aren’t enough mainstream education reporters left to cover a story like this. And the impact of the school closures on kids is a massive, somewhat chaotic, and still fast-moving story.

But still I can’t help but wishing for national coverage that was more frequent and comprehensive, providing the big picture, rather than the piecemeal, narrow-focus coverage I’m seeing that requires me and everyone else to pull the story together on our own.

There have been some exceptions, like Dana Goldstein’s recent look at remote learning logon numbers for the New York Times, and Lauren Camera’s look at the effects of the current interruption on vulnerable kids’ educational outcomes. USA Today’s Erin Richards has written some big-picture stories. Perhaps there are other stories that I’ve missed.

But so far as I’m aware, there are too few national-level, mainstream overviews of the COVID-19 story, reporting on trends, best practices, and comparing district responses to one another. We need a more frequently updated national perspective. Is there one out that there I’m not seeing?

SURVEY SAYS

We now have at least three different survey results related to remote learning to look at, including Gallup, Common Sense, and the Education Trust-West. The Los Angeles Times has a writeup of the EdTrust-West results. EdWeek has a writeup of the Gallup findings. EdSurge attempts to compare two of the poll results: Who’s Doing Remote Learning? Depends on Who You Ask — and How Wealthy They Are (above).

WRITING ABOUT THE FALLEN

Sad to say, but writing about educators who have fallen victim to COVID-19 is something that more and more education reporters are going to be doing in the next few days and weeks. EdWeek has a section here. The New York Times’ Eliza Shapiro describes writing about Brooklyn elementary school teacher Sandra Santos-Vizcaino, the first NYC public school teacher to die from the coronavirus, as a privilege.

LAYOFF NEWS

The news about layoffs and furloughs at news outlets is grim, but Jeff Solochek is still on duty covering education at the Tampa Bay Times and Megan Reeves’ move over to health care is temporary, we hope. Over at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Patrick O’Donnell is covering outlying counties but is still on staff for a little while longer.

TIDBITS

😷 WGBH Boston is still looking for a K-12 reporter.

😷 In a new essay for The Grade, English language learner teacher @barbgottschalk1 calls for including more EL student experiences in COVID-19 coverage – and gives examples of standout stories.

😷 ICYMI: Education and non-education news outlets are trying to respond with a variety of new offerings to help students, parents, and educators cope with the effects on both public and private education,

That’s it! See you back here tomorrow. Sign up for the weekly email, Best of the Week, which comes out Fridays around noon Eastern.