Learning Acceleration, Not Remediation, Is Essential for Students to Move Forward

Two years after Covid-19 forced nationwide school closures, the academic toll of the pandemic is coming into focus—and it's a sobering picture.

Even before the pandemic, my organization, TNTP, sounded the alarm that many students—particularly Black and brown ones from low-income families—weren't getting the educational opportunities they needed to graduate ready for college or a career. But during the past two years, significantly more students have fallen behind their grade level, exacerbating the
already dire situation.

The current unprecedented amount of unfinished learning could deny millions of students a sustainable path to social and economic mobility—keeping far too many locked in a cycle of intergenerational poverty. It's also one of the biggest long-term threats to our economic viability that nobody's talking about. After all, the success of businesses in every industry depends on a steady flow of graduates with the skills to take on 21st-century jobs.

School systems can take immediate steps to reverse the slide by adopting learning acceleration.

When students fall behind, teachers typically go back and reteach material from earlier grades before moving on. Although the remediation strategy makes sense on the surface, we've found that denying students access to grade-level work—even with good intentions—causes them to fall even further behind. With learning acceleration, teachers give grade-level material to every student, bringing in key concepts from earlier grades only when necessary. This “just in time” support can be key to catching up and moving forward.

Read the full article on Crain's New York.