The Growing Gap in Education due to COVID-19

COVID-19 has widened the gap between low and high income families even further than before. Differences such as testing accessibility and social distancing ability have led to the huge disparity in pandemic experiences between the two groups. Yet another inequality linked to household income is drastically growing: education. Between learning pods, private schools, and extra tutoring and resources, privileged students continue to gain advantages over low income students. The inequities in education between different income households is already a much discussed issue, but COVID-19 restrictions are worsening it at a much faster rate.

Let’s begin by examining learning pods. A learning pod, also called a pandemic pod or micro school, is what is formed when a small collection of parents hire a teacher to educate their children. They began as a way for parents to ensure their child was receiving a quality education while chaos ensued in the public school system early in the pandemic. While many argue that this is clearly a service that will only benefit those wealthy enough to afford the cost, some have suggested they could provide a safe alternative to the school system. But as Melinda Wenner Moyer of the New York Times explains: there are two key issues with this notion. For one, students leaving public schools affects the school’s funding. Public schools are given money based on the number of students attending them, so when students leave public schools it doesn’t free up resources; it reduces them. Secondly, it is more likely that a low income student invited to a pod, with subsidized costs, is an act of charity. Charity is not equity, and there is a larger number of low income children than children from high income households. And there is an issue largely overlooked by learning pods groups when discussing pods as an alternative to public schools: learning pods are fundamentally not a scalable solution. There is an insufficient number of teachers for learning pods to be a viable solution for teaching the American youth.

The role of private schools in the American education system has always been one of the first issues examined when discussing the inequities in contemporary education. They inherently hold several advantages over public schools, from funding to flexibility. Those two factors alone give them an edge in education during the pandemic. They do not need to deal with a teachers union or school boards, which lends to their flexibility when it comes to reopening. In fact, they dominate the number of schools reopening. In California alone, when schools could apply to reopen campuses, nearly 90% of the elementary schools granted waivers were private schools. One factor in this is the Teachers Union, who has fought against hurriedly reopening schools. They had argued against the waiver process, stating it was unsafe for communities and provided another unfair advantage to student families who could afford private tuition. Where Public schools need to work with the Teachers Union on reopening, the private schools do not. The Teachers Union isn’t misguided in being cautious, distance learning does help curb exposure to COVID-19. But when it comes to education quality, in-person learning is more effective than remote learning.

Separate from private schools, yet similar to learning pods, many affluent families have turned to more traditional ways of improving their child’s education. Students with tutors and additional learning resources held an advantage before COVID-19, but now those resources have become even more important. There has been a significant spike in tutoring services since the beginning of the pandemic, a tell tale sign that the inequities of our education system could be worsening. However, unlike pods and private schools, there is a silver lining. Tutoring has the potential to benefit disadvantaged students. As Philip Oreopoulos suggests, tutoring could be applied to disadvantaged students to combat the COVID-19 learning loss. Some public schools already do this, but if applied to a larger number of students and a larger number of schools, tutoring has the ability to help fight the overwhelming advantages high income families possess during the pandemic. And many agree, the key factor holding many schools back from implementing programs like this is funding.

The rift in education between high and low income families is worsening. Disadvantaged students are left to deal with the struggle public schools are experiencing with organization and resources while privileged students are able to seek better options. If this continues, the already large disparity in opportunities between low and high income individuals will widen, harming any future efforts to move toward equal opportunity. These growing advantages need to be combated with solutions that emphasize helping the disadvantaged, such as increased funding for tutorship and resources for public school students.