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:
California Schools’ Response To Pandemic Varies Widely – CALmatters
Coronavirus online school: Why homeschooling is so hard amid closures – USA Today
Northshore’s lesson for Washington schools amid the coronavirus closure: Online learning is hard to get right – Seattle Times
Cleveland’s charter and parochial schools are uneven in offering online classes during coronavirus shutdown – Cleveland Plain Dealer
Inside the life of a homeless Chicago student in the age of coronavirus – Sun-Times
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Just when I was getting worried about what looked like a falloff in education news about coronavirus, a series of strong stories came out over the weekend and today, full of the depth and nuance that the story requires.
The two most personal pieces I saw were the Chicago Sun Times’ look at the life of a homeless student during the shutdown and the Boston Globe’s profile of a high school senior who’s working at a nursing home.
Other offerings include a Washington Post team effort overview of what’s been going on during the last month’s national school shutdown/remote learning experiment. It hasn’t been going well, and post-shutdown recovery plans remain uncertain.
The Hechinger Report and Seattle Times teamed up to take a close look at Northshore schools, the relatively affluent Seattle-area district that closed up and went online early in the game, before reality hit.
There was also a great CALmatters comparison of how different districts near each other have responded to the challenges of remote learning. And USA Today has this helpful comparison and contrast piece showing how remote learning is operating so differently in different settings, which leads off with the description of how remote learning starts in three different places.
Compare and contrast is your friend! Has anyone compared how different kids in a single home are experiencing remote learning, based on differences among teachers they’re assigned or schools they attend?
LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
There were lots of angry and sad reactions to the news that longtime education reporter Patrick O’Donnell was no longer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I’ve seen some crappy things happen to good journalists in this industry, but this is among the worst,” tweeted Cara Fitzpatrick. Read some of the details of O’Donnell and others’ departure via Cleveland Scene. The NY Times estimates that 28,000 news media workers have been laid off, furloughed or had their pay cut since the coronavirus crisis began. More layoffs and furloughs among education reporters are almost sure to follow.
TIDBITS
Great to see some familiar bylines out there over the past few days, including Mario Koran in The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal’s Michele Hackman back on the education beat writing about What It’s Like to Teach Sixth-Grade Science Over Zoom.
How are reporters getting great stories without endangering themselves or their subjects? One strategy employed by the Boston Globe was to have a kid Zoom his day.
A noteworthy collaboration pulled together this coverage by journalists from The Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati Public Radio’s 91.7 WVXU, depicting six families’ remote learning experiences.
RIP, Darran Simon, the Washington Post reporter who passed away last week at the age of 43. “I relied on the work Darran Simon did covering post-Katrina #nolaed for The Times-Picayune,” tweeted Danielle Dreilinger. “Such a loss to my former colleagues, his subjects and our profession.”
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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.
Visit their website at: https://the-grade.org/
