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Virus forced schools online, but many students didn't followJULIE WATSON and CAROLYN THOMPSONAssociated PressApril 17, 2020, 
SAN DIEGO (AP) — During the first week that her San Diego public school was shuttered to slow the spread of the coronavirus, not one of Elise Samaniego's students logged on to her virtual classroom.
Three weeks in, the teacher still hadn’t connected online with roughly two-thirds of the students in her third- and fourth-grade combo class at Paradise Hills Elementary. She fears the pandemic will exact a devastating toll on education in the United States, especially at low-income schools like hers.
“I do have several students below grade level, and this is just going to make it worse," said Samaniego, who has been emailing and calling families to get her 22 students to participate.
Teachers across the country report their attempts at distance learning are failing to reach large numbers of students. Hundreds of thousands of students are still without computers or internet access. Those who do log on have countless distractions: They are babysitting siblings, sharing laptops, lying in bed during lessons. Others log on only to walk away.
为了减缓冠状病毒的传播，Elise Samaniego在圣地亚哥的公立学校被关闭的第一周，没有一个学生登录她的虚拟教室。三周过去了，在天堂山小学(Paradise Hills Elementary)的三、四年级综合班中，约有三分之二的学生没有上网。她担心流感大流行会对美国的教育造成毁灭性的打击，尤其是像她这样的低收入学校。我确实有几个成绩低于年级水平的学生，这只会让情况变得更糟，”萨马尼戈说，她一直在给家人发邮件和打电话，让她的22名学生参与进来。全国各地的教师报告说，他们尝试的远程教育未能惠及大量学生。成千上万的学生仍然没有电脑或互联网接入。那些登录的人有无数的干扰:他们是照看孩子的兄弟姐妹，共用笔记本电脑，上课时躺在床上。另一些人登录后就离开了。
With schools closed for the rest of the year in at least 23 states, the uneven progress with remote learning is raising concerns that those who already were struggling will be left further behind.
“The pandemic is an educational equity crisis for vulnerable students who were too often underserved by our education system in ‘normal’ times,” said Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-New York.
Not all schools are struggling. Those accustomed to technology transitioned smoothly. Derek Blunt, a math teacher at Making Community Connections Charter School in Keene, New Hampshire, said students are issued iPads in normal times and regularly use Google Classroom and other platforms. A week after the school closed, nearly all of his 65 students were doing their work.
In contrast, students at Samaniego's school faced several hurdles before learning could begin. Some only had internet access through their parents' phones.
至少有23个州的学校在今年剩下的时间里停课，远程教育的不均衡进展引发了人们的担忧，他们担心那些已经在苦苦挣扎的学生将进一步落后。教育信托-纽约的执行董事Ian Rosenblum说:“在正常时期，我们的教育系统常常没有为弱势学生提供足够的服务，而这次大流行对他们来说是一场教育公平危机。”并不是所有的学校都在苦苦挣扎。那些习惯了技术的人过渡顺利。德里克·布朗特(Derek Blunt)是新罕布什尔州基恩市(Keene)“建立社区联系”特许学校(Making Community Connections Charter School)的数学老师。学校关闭一周后，他的65名学生几乎都在做作业。相比之下，Samaniego学校的学生在开始学习之前面临着几个障碍。有些人只能通过父母的手机上网。
“I can’t tell them even where to start," she said. "Do you have a computer? That's step 1. Then you have to download Chrome. That’s step 2."
In New York City, the nation's largest school district, tens of thousands of tablets and laptops have been lent to students, and the plan is for everyone to have a device by the end of April. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the district was still gathering data, but “there’s clearly an issue with attendance.”
That is true in many places.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second largest, as many as 40% of elementary school students had not logged on even once as of the first week of April — three weeks after the system closed.
As for those who have made an appearance, superintendent Austin Beutner, cautioned that “merely logging in does not tell us anything more than the student turned on their computer.”
“我甚至不能告诉他们从哪里开始，”她说。“你有电脑吗?”这是第一步。然后你必须下载Chrome。这是第二步。”
在美国最大的学区纽约市，数万台平板电脑和笔记本电脑已被借给学生，计划在4月底前让每个人都拥有一台设备。纽约市长白思豪(Bill de Blasio)表示，该地区仍在收集数据，但“出勤率显然存在问题”。
在很多地方都是这样。
在美国第二大学区洛杉矶联合学区，截至4月第一周，即系统关闭三周后，多达40%的小学生连一次登录都没有。
至于那些露面的学生，学校负责人奥斯丁·伯特纳提醒说，“仅仅登录并不能告诉我们任何事情，就像学生打开电脑一样。”
In ordinary times, some 16% percent of public school students nationally are chronically absent, with higher rates among high school, black and Hispanic students, according to the U.S. Education Department.
Many districts are now not tracking attendance because it tells them so little. But attendance is usually critical: Absenteeism is linked to a significant increase in the risk of dropping out of school.
And attendance is only one part of the puzzle.
据美国教育部(U.S. Education Department)的数据，在正常情况下，全国约有16%的公立学校学生长期缺课，高中生、黑人和拉美裔学生的缺课率更高。许多地区现在没有追踪出勤率，因为它告诉他们的太少了。但出勤率通常是至关重要的:旷课与辍学风险的显著增加有关。出席率只是问题的一部分。
Michelle Katz, a math teacher at the public Northridge Academy High School in the Los Angeles area, revamped lessons so they would work online. Most students in her Algebra II and pre-Calculus classes are doing their work. But only about half of her 10th grade geometry students are logging on, and even some of them aren't handing in assignments.
“When they were in class, you could get on their back and ask them about what was going on, where is the work?” Katz said. “It’s hard from a distance.”
米歇尔卡茨(Michelle Katz)是洛杉矶地区公立北岭学院高中(Northridge Academy High School)的一名数学老师。在她的代数II和微积分预备课上，大多数学生都在做作业。但是只有大约一半的十年级几何学生登录了，甚至有些学生还没有交作业。当他们在课堂上的时候，你可以在他们背后问他们发生了什么，工作在哪里?卡茨说。从远处看很难。
Adding to her frustration was a student who interrupted a virtual class with yelling and profanity five times.
Schools are responding by making accommodations. San Diego Unified School District said this month is for working out the kinks, and instruction officially starts April 27. Some schools are adopting pass or fail systems or “no harm grading,” in which grades will not be lowered during distance learning but can go up.
Given the difficulties of conceiving lessons and science labs that are effective virtually, some assignments feel like busy work to Emily Weinberg, a senior at Lexington High School, a public school in Massachusetts.
更让她沮丧的是，一名学生在虚拟课堂上大喊大叫，脏话连篇五次，打断了课堂。学校的回应是提供住宿。圣迭戈联合学区表示，这个月是为了解决这些问题，教学将于4月27日正式开始。一些学校正在采用及格或不及格制度或无伤害分级制度，在这种制度下，远程学习的成绩不会降低，但可以提高。对于马萨诸塞州列克星敦高中(Lexington High School)的高三学生埃米莉·温伯格(Emily Weinberg)来说，考虑到想要让课程和科学实验在虚拟世界中产生效果的难度，有些作业就像是一项繁忙的工作。
“I had to try to figure out what the kinetic energy of a dime was when I pushed it,” she said. “I felt like this is wasting my time.”
Even so, she's completing all her work.
But others aren't and, in light of the challenges, some districts are ending the school year early, rather than leave many students behind. Many states are waiving the day requirements they set for this year.
Officials have not said what will happen in the fall, though there have been some calls to have certain kids who already were struggling repeat the year.
“我得试着算出我推硬币时它的动能是多少，”她说。我觉得这是在浪费我的时间。尽管如此，她还是完成了所有的工作。但也有一些学校没有这样做，而且鉴于这些挑战，一些学区提前结束了学年，而不是让很多学生落后。许多州正在放弃他们为今年设定的日期要求。官员们还没有透露今年秋天将会发生什么，不过已经有一些人呼吁让某些已经在苦苦挣扎的孩子再上一学年。
Dan Gannon, who teaches history at Bronx Leadership Academy, a public school in the nation's poorest congressional district, agrees lessons have suffered in shortened periods without teacher aides. Participation in his classes has vacillated between 50% and 80%.
Still, some learning is better than none, he said. Expectations need to be adjusted, but “that shouldn’t stop us from trying to do some kind of teaching and some kind of learning.”
This disruption is the second since 2018 for Achieve Charter School, which burned down in California’s deadliest wildfire that devastated the town of Paradise.
甘农(Dan Gannon)在布朗克斯领导学院(Bronx Leadership Academy)教授历史，这是一所位于美国最贫困的国会选区的公立学校。他的课堂参与度在50%到80%之间摇摆不定。不过，他说，有一些知识总比没有好。期望是需要调整的，但这不应该阻止我们去尝试一些教学和一些学习。这是Achieve特许学校自2018年以来的第二次破坏，该学校在加州最致命的野火中被烧毁，这场大火摧毁了天堂之城。
Immediately after the fire, principal Steven Wright held morning assemblies via Facebook. He started them again after his school closed in March.
“What are we really hoping to teach kids?” Wright asked during one recent online assembly. “I don’t think that those things that we talked about — in life, and entrepreneurship and how to be a better person and lead our world and be world changers — I don’t think that teaching those things is limited at all by not gathering together for awhile.”
火灾发生后，校长史蒂文·赖特立即通过Facebook举行了晨会。他的学校3月份关闭后，他又重新开办了这些学校。我们真正希望教给孩子们什么?莱特在最近的一次网上集会上问道。我不认为我们在生活中谈论的那些事情，创业，如何成为一个更好的人，如何领导我们的世界，如何成为世界的改变者，我不认为教授这些事情是有限制的，因为有一段时间没有聚集在一起。___
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Thompson reported from Buffalo, New York. Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
汤普森在纽约布法罗报道。美联社(Associated Press)驻纽约记者佩尔茨(Jennifer Peltz)对本文有贡献。
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