Can Learning Pods be Made Available to All Students?

The reality is dawning that most K-12 students in the United States will have minimal in-person instruction this semester and possibly beyond. Districts and schools are scrambling to up their game with online learning while parents are taking matters into their own hands with DIY homeschooling solutions.

Amongst the affluent, learning pods have emerged as a go-to solution. Although definitions vary, for most people, a learning pod (also known as micro-school) is a group of parents who trust each other enough to quarantine together and share the cost of a teacher or tutor to support a small group of students while also providing childcare. Silicon Valley has hopped on this trend and mobilized capital and entrepreneurs to deliver the infrastructure and services needed to offer pods for those who can pay.

It’s the most natural thing for parents with means to want the best for their child’s education. However, as the NYT reported last week, learning pods will play a big role in widening the gap in learning loss experienced by rich versus poor students during COVID. My son is still a toddler so I am not dealing with the need to homeschool him. If he were a little older, I would be terrified by the idea that he might fall behind his peers. If I kept him home, he would not acquire the social skills, including social learning skills, that kids in pods will acquire. And, although the evidence is spottier and the quality of both pods and online learning experiences will vary widely, he might also fall behind on learning foundational concepts in reading and math. These core academic skills determine a person’s ability to progress and succeed not only in school but also in the workforce. Whether the rich are using pods, online personal tutors, supplemental online experiences, or expensive, high-quality online schooling, they are widening the already yawning gap between their children and the children of the poor.

So, how can we reduce the damage COVID is doing to the future prospects of America’s most vulnerable students?

And, if learning pods are one of the most promising ways to shore up learning loss this fall (and possibly next year), why aren’t we talking about how to offer them to everyone?

There are several ways we could broaden access to learning pods. One is to have the local school district operate pods for at least a subset of students. The Marin County Office of Education is doing this on school premises for pods of special education students. Nonprofits including the YMCA and religious organizations are also exploring offering space and possibly some child-care resources. Schools or non-profits might continue to do instruction remotely but hire or solicit volunteers to perform childcare and supervision for small in-person groups. These efforts are admirable but still fragmented.

Is there a way to offer a national pod program? One way to meet the needs of our most vulnerable students at scale could be to launch a national corps of volunteer learning leaders — think Teach For America meets the Peace Corps. Learning Leaders would facilitate in-person pods of 8–10 students and act as on-site aides to remote public school teachers who would offer domain-specific instruction at a distance. Learning Leaders would help students stay on track by providing them with in-person support, tutoring, and a dedicated learning environment. The pods would provide much needed human support to students but also a childcare option for their families.

How to design a program like this? It would likely make sense to focus on younger students who are less able to study unsupervised or stay home alone. There are 35.5 million students in K-8th grade in the U.S., of which ~52% are eligible for free or reduced lunch. If the efforts of the Learning Leaders were focused (at least initially) on these more vulnerable students, 18.5mm children would be eligible to participate and roughly 2mm volunteers would be needed to support them (assuming pods of 8–10 children).

This is clearly no small undertaking. It would require swift recruitment of volunteers, vetting of their skills, background checking, intensive online training for Learning Leaders on facilitation skills, tutoring and health & safety protocols, plus ongoing online professional development resources. It would also require that districts have the infrastructure needed to assign students to pods, identify suitable in-home or municipal pod locations, and match teachers with Learning Leaders for planning and guidance. Some public school districts have already taken matters into their own hands and started doing this.

The cost. The program would require funding to pay volunteers and for the administration of the program. If we assume that volunteers would be paid $15 per hour, 8 hours per day, 5 days per week during a 15 week semester, the cost per volunteer would be $9,000. If we multiply that by 2 million volunteers, the cost is $18 billion. There is some serious sticker shock with a price like that but to put it in context, this number is 17% of the expected ~$105 billion education funding that is expected as part of the Senate’s proposed HEALS Act. There are also very significant economic benefits that could offset this cost.

• Meaningful employment for millions of volunteers who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed in a very tough economy.
• Childcare for parents of almost 20mm students involved in the program which enables them to continue working or get a job.
• Reduction in the ultimate need for remediation and other social services to catch students up further down.
• Reduction in the community spread of COVID through schools by containing students in small group pods where an outbreak can be quickly isolated.

The program cost could also be offset in part by philanthropy. MacKenzie Scott has given away $1.7 billion recently against an estimated net worth of $36 billion. Education is a key focus area for her and other philanthropists and Foundations, given that it is the only investment that can literally transform every facet of a person’s life and opportunity. Tech companies that have amassed gains during the disruption that is depriving students of their basic human right to quality education, may also be willing backers of a national program like this.

As an immigrant living in the US for the past 10 years, I deeply admire the culture of volunteerism and philanthropy that exists here. This, combined with American ingenuity, innovation, and an unparalleled ability to scale ideas, needs to be deployed now, not only in Silicon Valley but more broadly to ensure that this generation of young learners can avoid irreparable learning loss during COVID. We need to have a conversation about solutions that can reach all students and stop focusing solely on the wealthy ones.

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