Disrupted Schooling Spells Worse Results and Deeper Inequality

The first meeting between teachers in Montpelier, Vermont, before the start of the autumn term is usually festive —     1     over breakfast and coffee. This year they had to make do with an online video conference. After a scramble in the spring (to set up online learning, pack lunches for poor pupils who relied on them and     2     computers to those without them), the district plans to let younger pupils return for in-person learning on September 8th. High school will remain partly online because the building is too small to allow enough room in between. The young pupils who can return will need to wear masks, keep their social     3     and have temperature checks before entering school buses or buildings. Setting up these protocols took many 60-hour weeks over the summer holidays, says Libby Bonesteel, the superintendent.

Of the 50 largest school districts in America, 35 plan to start the coming term entirely     4    . The opportunity to control the virus over the summer has been lost, upending(颠覆) plans for “hybrid” education (part-time in-person instruction). This means more than just child-care     5     for parents. The continued disruption to schooling will probably spell permanent learning loss,     6     hurting poorer pupils.

“Achievement     7     will become great achievement differences,” warns Robin Lake, director of the Centre on Reinventing Public Education, a research group. Analysts at McKinsey, a consultancy, think that the     8     American pupil would suffer 6.8 months of learning loss if in-person instruction does not     9     until January 2021 (which looks possible). This would fall heaviest on black pupils, who would lose over ten months’     10     of instruction, and poor ones, who would fall behind by more than a year. Most likely, there could be 648,000 more high-school dropouts.

In the normal run of things, late summer     1     airports in the emerging world filled with nervous 18-year-olds, jetting off to begin a new life in the rich world's universities. The annual journey of more than five million students is a victory of globalization. Students see the world; universities get a fresh batch of high-paying customers. Yet with fights grounded and borders closed, this migration is about to become the pandemic's latest     2    .

For students, covid-l9 is making life difficult. Many must choose between inconveniently timed seminars streamed into their parents' living rooms and inconveniently deferring (延缓) their studies until life is more normal. It is     3     for universities, who will not only lose huge chunks of fees from foreign students but, because campus life spreads infection, they will have to     4     the way they operate.

Yet the disaster may have an upside. For many years government funding and     5     demand have allowed universities to resist changes that could benefit both students and society, but they may not be able to do so for much longer.

Higher education has been     6    . Since 1995, as the notion spread from the rich world to the emerging one that a degree from a good institution was essential, the number of young people     7     in higher education rose from 16% of the age group to 38%. However, troubles are piling up. China has been a source of high-paying foreign students for Western universities, but relations between the West and China are     8    . Students with ties to the army are to be banned from America.

Governments have been turning against universities, too. In an age when politics divides along educational lines, universities struggle to persuade some politicians of their merit. President Trump attacks them for “Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education”. Some 59% of Republican voters have a negative view of colleges. In Britain universities' noisy     9     to Brexit has not helped. Given that the state pays for between a quarter and a half of tertiary education in America, Australia and Britain, through student loans and grants, the government's willingness     10    .