On April 23, 2024, Governor Brian Kemp signed SB 233, the Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship Act, into law. This program—the first of its kind in Ģ����Ƶ—will give parents access to $6,500 state-funded scholarships that they can use to afford the education option best suited to their child’s needs. 

The Promise Scholarship Program empowers parents to give their kids quality education and brighter futures��

Promise Scholarships will be state-administered, state-funded that give parents $6,500 per year and per student to use for approved education expenses. The program will be available beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. 

Parents can use these scholarships for a variety of education costs, including: 

• Tuition and fees for private schools, online classes, college courses, and vocational programs
• Tutoring services
• Curriculum and textbooks
• Educational therapies
• Technology, including adaptive or assistive technologies for students with special needs
• Transportation costs

Because of this flexibility, Promise Scholarships allow parents to consider a wide range of options—from homeschooling to private schools to other unique combinations of education services. 

“The best gift we can give our next generation is a quality education that opens the doors for new opportunities.” — Randy Hicks, GCO President & CEO

Promise Scholarship eligibility focuses on low- and middle-income students��

SB 233 limits Promise Scholarship access to students enrolled in the bottom 25% of Ģ����Ƶ’s public schools, as ranked by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. 

First priority will also be given to students from families below 400% of the federal poverty level—around $120,000 a year for a family of four. Students above that threshold will be allowed to participate if funds are left over after the lower-income students are served.

These parameters—plus the funding cap that SB 233 puts on the program—means that Promise Scholarships will serve an estimated 21,000-22,000 kids out of half a million that are stuck in low-performing public schools. 

See all the student eligibility requirements here. 

The Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship is an important step for updating our education system

SB 233 is a good step toward giving Ģ����Ƶ families access to high-quality, diverse education options. With more education options, students will have even better opportunities to get an education that’s tailored to their needs and sets them up for success in today’s fast-changing world. But if Ģ����Ƶ is serious about investing in our communities, we must keep working to close the education opportunity gap for all of Ģ����Ƶ’s kids. 

By passing SB 233, Ģ����Ƶ is catching up to neighboring states like , , that have already adopted education savings account programs. 

While Ģ����Ƶ is starting out with narrow student eligibility, these other states are opting for , opening access to all students. Ģ����Ƶ will need to be open to this model if we want to give our own students the best possible academic outcomes and opportunities for a flourishing life. 

Thank you to Gov. Kemp and the lawmakers who recognized the urgency of the moment and passed Promise Scholarships to strengthen the key building block of education for thousands of kids across the state. It’s a momentous step toward a system where every child has access to quality education and a good life, regardless of income, race, zip code, or other life circumstances. 

Learn more about the Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship

The Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship Act (SB 233): Questions and Answers (Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity)

(Ģ����Ƶ Public Policy Foundation)

The Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship (SB 233): What Private Schools Need to Know (Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity)

Ģ����Ƶ Students Need More Schooling Choices (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Washington Examiner)

The post Ģ����Ƶ Passes Promise Scholarships and Expands Education Opportunity appeared first on For Opportunity.

On March 29, 2023, the Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship Act (Senate Bill 233) failed by a vote of 85-89 in the House of Representatives, despite passing the Ģ����Ƶ Senate on March 6, 2023. 

At the time, that was the furthest that an bill had advanced in the Ģ����Ƶ Legislature. Despite having support from Governor Brian Kemp, Lt. Governor Burt Jones, and Speaker Jon Burns, the bill still came up six votes short of passage in the House.

Ģ����Ƶ needs Promise Scholarships to build its future workforce and prosperity

In late 2023, Governor Brian Kemp announced a new program called . Ģ����Ƶ Match seeks to connect every high school senior with a post-secondary education path that meets each student’s needs. The program brings unprecedented cooperation between the Ģ����Ƶ Department of Education, The Technical College System of Ģ����Ƶ, and the University System of Ģ����Ƶ. It’s not an exaggeration to say this program can potentially transform Ģ����Ƶ’s educational system and workforce.

SB 233 would allow students zoned for a school ranked in the bottom 25% for two consecutive years, according to Ģ����Ƶ’s College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI), to use a Promise Scholarship. 

• Promise Scholarships would allow these families to access education options that they might not otherwise be able to afford or use. The scholarship could be applied to private school tuition, homeschooling materials, or other educational expenses defined in the bill.
  
  
• The state would put the scholarship amount ($6,500) in a parent-directed account controlled by the state of Ģ����Ƶ for these purposes.

Based on CCRPI scores, which were last calculated in 2018-2019, 298 schools currently fall into the bottom 25% criteria. These schools are located all across Ģ����Ƶ, but mostly in areas of high poverty.

It’s important to note that limiting the Promise Scholarship to only the bottom 25% of schools doesn’t cover all the schools in Ģ����Ƶ that receive D or F grades in CCRPI.

To see Ģ����Ƶ Match fulfill its potential, K-12 students must be prepared to succeed in the post-secondary education path they choose—especially those students eligible for a Promise Scholarship and those who deserve better economic and social opportunities to escape poverty. 

“Our job is not decide for every family but to support them in making the best choice for their child.”
— Gov. Brian Kemp, 2024 State of the State Address

��[16 Republican legislators opposed Promise Scholarships in 2023. Here’s why they should have changed their vote.

Over the past 10 years, Republican governors and legislators have passed and tried to implement reforms meant to improve Ģ����Ƶ’s lowest-performing public schools. From the failed Opportunity School District constitutional amendment to the all-but-gutted Chief Turnaround Officer legislation, efforts for transformational reform within the traditional public school system have been stifled.

Many of the schools in question also receive intensive assistance from the Department of Education (DOE) via the Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) and Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) programs. These programs require schools to develop improvement plans in close collaboration with DOE officials. 

While these programs have helped, there’s an important detail that voters and parents should know about. Several of these schools in the bottom 25% of CCRPI performance today were schools that qualified for the Opportunity School District program back in 2015. 

In other words, these schools are still among our state’s lowest-performing schools after eight years of intensive assistance. Should we continue to tell parents to wait for another program? If your children or grandchildren were zoned for these schools, would you tell them to wait?

For several legislators, including 16 Republican Representatives, the answer has been “yes.”

Of the 16 Republican legislators who voted against SB 233 in 2023, 13 have public schools in their districts that are in the bottom 25%. Yet all 16 of these districts have private schools ready to accept more students. In addition, Ģ����Ƶ has a robust homeschooling community in all corners of the state, as well as a burgeoning microschool movement. Promise Scholarship recipients can access these options no matter where they live.

Ģ����Ƶ’s Promise Scholarship Explained
Find out what the program is, how it works, and which students will be eligible. 

See the Promise Scholarship FAQs

To meet Ģ����Ƶ’s diverse student needs, the answer is to expand parental options.

If we truly want Governor Kemp’s Ģ����Ƶ Match program to succeed, parents need more options. If we truly want all of Ģ����Ƶ’s students to obtain a quality education and pursue post-secondary education that prepares them for a meaningful career and a stable life, parents need more options. If we want Ģ����Ƶ’s economy to continue to thrive and attract new industries to our state, parents need more options.

Expanding parental options will lift our entire educational system. To see this in action, all we need to do is look south. A November 2023 of Florida’s educational landscape found that as school choice programs matured, the positive effects were felt across the board, including within the public schools:

“We find that as public schools are more exposed to private school choice, their students experience increasing benefits as the program matures. In particular, higher levels of private school choice exposure are associated with lower rates of suspensions and absences, and with higher standardized test scores in reading and math.”

The students showing the most gains? Students with low–socioeconomic status (SES).��

Far from harming public schools, school choice actually improves public schools. Ģ����Ƶ’s students deserve to have this opportunity as well.

With SB 233, Ģ����Ƶ legislators had an incredible chance to set Ģ����Ƶ students on a path toward academic success and a bright future. Thankfully, SB 233 and Ģ����Ƶ’s kids received the support needed from lawmakers, and the Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarship passed in April 2024. The progam will become available for Ģ����Ƶ parents and students in Fall 2025. 

Related Articles

Ģ����Ƶ Needs to Widen Schooling Choices in 2024
(Buzz Brockway in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarships (SB 233): Questions and Answers

Gov. Brian Kemp Champions Education Opportunity, Calls for Unity on Promise Scholarship

Why Educational Opportunity Is Good for Rural Areas, Too

The post SB 233: Ģ����Ƶ Promise Scholarships Would Help Thousands of Students. Why Did Some Districts Vote Against It? appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Points

• Ģ����Ƶ General Assembly, lawmakers unanimously approved, which creates a pathway for thousands of Ģ����Ƶns who might face roadblocks to getting an occupational license to smooth the path for doing so, provided they held a license
• One in four workers now need some type of occupational license
• ��H.B. 155 will help to keep our economy prosperous

As our nation continues to face a shortage of skilled and qualified workers in a variety of occupations, it’s important that state policy work to reduce as many barriers as possible to employment. Unfortunately, frequently one of those barriers is occupational licensing, which in many cases tosses up roadblocks that don’t make sense but keep good workers from entering the labor force.

Thankfully, Ģ����Ƶ could soon be taking a step in the right direction on this issue. In the recently concluded session of the Ģ����Ƶ General Assembly, lawmakers unanimously approved, which creates a pathway for thousands of Ģ����Ƶns who might face roadblocks to getting an occupational license to smooth the path for doing so, provided they held a license in good standing in their previous state of residence. By providing these licenses immediately, these new Ģ����Ƶ residents will be able to quickly get a job.

Ģ����Ƶ is still one of the fastest growing states in the country. Estimates show that over 81,000 people moved to our state in 2022—a 1.2% increase in our population. There is no indication this type of growth will slow down any time soon. Additionally, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, one in four workers now need some type of occupational license. For these reasons, H.B. 155 will help Ģ����Ƶ maintain its status as the nation’s best state in which to do business.

looked at the positive impacts of Arizona’s “universal recognition bill – House Bill 2569 passed in 2019. Their study showed that since 2019, 6,500 people benefitted from Arizona’s universal recognition policies. While H.B. 155 is not universal—firefighters, law enforcement, medical and legal professionals are excluded—most licensed occupations are included, so we could expect thousands of new Ģ����Ƶns each year benefitting from the passage of this legislation.

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Reforms to occupational licensing are a key piece of the puzzle to help reinvigorate our workforce. The changes will ultimately help the individuals we are helping through BETTER WORK in and —individuals who need training, wrap-around services, and opportunities for easy on-ramps into the workforce. Many of the professions that have unfair occupational licensing practices fall into this category.

The bottom line is that by allowing these Ģ����Ƶns to quickly get to work, H.B. 155 will help to keep our economy prosperous and our families strong. The bill currently sits on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk, awaiting his signature.

The post Ģ����Ƶ is poised to expand workforce opportunity appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Points

• Voters are not saying other issues, such as race and gender, are not important, just that learning loss is more important.
• We can’t be thinking of this as a one-year catch-up.

• There are other interventions that have been shown to have effects, it’s just that no single intervention gets you all the way.��

It has been well documented that school closing due to the pandemic caused students to lose ground (see and ). Recent polling suggests that parents are very concerned about this learning loss and want political leaders to focus on this issue.

Consider this from :

Matt Hogan, a partner at Impact Research, said that it was striking to see Republicans seize an edge on an issue that “has historically been one of the Democrats’ strengths.”��

“There’s just a perception that Democrats’ focus on education is not where voters want it to be, which is helping kids make up the ground they lost,” Hogan said. “They think both parties are too focused on race and gender issues in schools, rather than focusing on catching kids up — but notably, they think that is true of Democrats even more so than Republicans.”

Notice that voters are not saying other issues, such as race and gender, are not important, just that learning loss is more important. Yet as we survey the political landscape, very few politicians or candidates are talking about what parents are most concerned about.��

Perhaps this is because there is no magic wand that can be waived to fix the problem. There is no list of “five easy steps to catch your kids up, and number four will blow your mind.” There are, however, things that can and should be done immediately.

Recently, Harvard economist Tom Kane produced a study of the impact of learning loss and proposed solutions. Kane’s research found that one-on-one tutoring was effective, but not effective enough to eliminate the learning loss for students in schools that were closed most of the 2020-2021 school year. Schools, he said, . Kane said:

So what can schools and districts realistically be expected to do in this situation?��

We can’t be thinking of this as a one-year catch-up. If we really are committed to making students whole and eliminating these losses, it’s going to be multiple years. There are other interventions that have been shown to have effects, it’s just that no single intervention gets you all the way.��

In March, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 which included substantial funding for education. However, only 20% of those funds are required to be spent on recovering learning loss. Kane suggests districts spend more than 20% or perhaps all of their ARPA funds on learning loss recovery:

We try to put the scale of the [learning] losses and the amount of aid that districts have received in the same scale. We report both as a share of an annual school district budget, which I think is a useful starting point for thinking about what it’s going to cost a district to recover. If a district has lost the equivalent of, say, 22 weeks of instruction as a result of being remote, and you’re asking what it’s going to cost to make up for that, the lower bound of the estimated cost would have to start with [the question], “What does it cost to provide 22 weeks of instruction in a typical school year?”

We think that’s a useful starting point for people, and what they’d see is that in the high-poverty districts that were remote for more than half of 2021, the amount of aid they received is basically equivalent to — maybe a little more, but not much more than — the magnitude of their losses in terms of instructional weeks. That just means that, rather than spending the 20 percent minimum that was required in the American Rescue Plan, some districts should be thinking that they’ll need all of that aid for academic catch-up.

Imagine how much better off our society would be if politicians and school leaders truly committed to not only eliminating the pandemic learning loss, but using those interventions to insure every student is on grade level. How wonderful would that be?

Imagine how much better off our society would be if politicians and school leaders truly committed to not only eliminating the pandemic learning loss, but using those interventions to insure every student is on grade level. How wonderful would that be?

Additionally, empowering parents to choose a school that best fits their child, be it traditional public school, tuition-free charter school, private school, or homeschool, should also be a tool we deploy to help get kids caught up.��

Polling has made it clear that parents want learning loss recovery to be a high priority for their child’s school. In this election year, candidates and elected officials would be wise to make this an issue in their campaigns. Parents should demand this of their candidates, and then hold them accountable to eliminating learning loss for every student.��

Imagine how much better off our society would be if politicians and school leaders truly committed to not only eliminating the pandemic learning loss, but using those interventions to insure every student is on grade level. How wonderful would that be?

The post We Must Close The Grade Level Gap appeared first on For Opportunity.

Join other parents and community leaders on Liberty Plaza to spread the message that it is time for change in education

Today, hundreds of parents, families, and advocates will come together for����to voice their support for more educational options through Promise Scholarships.

The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity’s (GCO) take: “The time for Ģ����Ƶ lawmakers to act is right now. Already, 23 other states have passed legislation in recent months to create or expand educational opportunity for��their families,” said Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vice president of public policy. “Our state must follow their lead by passing Promise Scholarships, which are a huge leap in the right direction to put kids first.”

The post Education Rally: Access to More High-Quality Education Options appeared first on For Opportunity.

The COVID19 pandemic has disrupted many things here in America. As every parent knows, one of the major disruptions took place in the realm of education. News has been coming out that among the disruptions in education has been the number of parents choosing to homeschool their kids. Now, we’re not talking about the quasi-homeschooling that all kids experienced when their schools closed and all the kids went to Zoom School. We’re talking about folks who have decided to unenroll their students from public or private school and teach their children themselves, most using a curriculum and resources crafted for homeschooling.

In March, the Census Bureau released results of their . The Survey said…

By fall, 11.1% of households with school-age children reported homeschooling (Sept. 30-Oct. 12). A clarification was added to the school enrollment question to make sure households were reporting true homeschooling rather than virtual learning through a public or private school.

That change represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points and a doubling of U.S. households that were homeschooling at the start of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the prior year.��

In Ģ����Ƶ, the Survey additionally reported that a staggering 16% of households were homeschooling last fall. This is also the number of African-American households homeschooling nationwide (up from 3% pre-pandemic!). It will be interesting to see if data for the 2021-2022 school year reflects a return to public and private schools as school buildings reopen, or if these parents decide to continue homeschooling.

The reasons people choose homeschooling vary. Joyce Burgess of the National Black Homeschool Association explains are choosing to homeschool:��

“They’re making these conclusions that peer pressure, they don’t have to be bothered with unnecessary racism, they don’t have to be bothered with bullying, they don’t have to be bothered with negative peer pressure. Some parents have chosen to bring their children home because the virtual setting, some parents just aren’t able to navigate that,” said Burgess.

A recent guest post in Bari Weiss’ Substack provides further insight to .����

When the covid lockdowns hit in March 2020 —��in a matter of��, some 124,000 public and private schools with 55.1 million students shut down��—��American families suddenly had to adjust to school-via-screen.

The parents weren’t just upset about all the screen time their kids were logging. They were upset about what they saw on those screens. For the first time, millions of moms and dads could watch, in real time, their children’s teachers teaching.

It was a moment of “parent empowerment,” said Kerry McDonald, a senior fellow at the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education. That’s one way to put it.��

Here’s another: “My kindergartener was getting maybe twenty minutes of instruction per day,” said Pauline, a house cleaner in Durham, North Carolina, who prefers using only her middle name to stay anonymous.��

Pauline and her child lasted about two weeks in remote school before she decided it was a waste of everyone’s time. After a summer of lockdown, Pauline opted for a “homeschool co-op” with four other families. She was planning to send her now seven-year-old back to public school this year. “Being isolated made my kid miserable,” she said. “And I like public school. I was excited to send my kid there.”

The Delta variant, combined with her husband’s asthma, and the fact that there is no vaccine requirement for teachers in her district threw a wrench in that plan. What started as a short-term solution has morphed into a new normal.��

As my colleague Jamie Lord and I , this demonstrates the real beauty of the concept of school choice: whether you want kids masked, or unmasked, have your school teach a certain curriculum or not, all parents, no matter their income status or location, should have choices in how and where their kid is educated.����

We at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity will continue to fight for the right of all parents to choose the best method of educating their children.��

The post Education Disruption appeared first on For Opportunity.

Late on the evening of August 3rd, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control announced it was extending its eviction moratorium for people in an area of “substantial and high transmission” of the COVID-19 virus. This was followed up by the astounding statement by President Biden that he suspected any attempt to extend the moratorium would be legally doomed even as his administration celebrated the CDC action. Nevertheless, government attorneys argued this was not an extension but rather a new order that would not be set aside by the courts.��

The Supreme Court recently ruled the original policy illegal, but allowed the original deadline of July 31st to stand to give Congress a chance to act prior to the expiration of the order, if it chose to do so. In keeping with the dysfunction we’ve seen in Congress, no legislation was passed, the moratorium expired, and the House of Representatives left town.��

Setting aside the legal questions surrounding the CDC’s eviction moratorium, many people across the nation are facing eviction now and will be again in 60 days when the moratorium expires. The Household Pulse Survey indicates 52,167 Ģ����Ƶns say they are very likely to be evicted and 155,302 say they are somewhat likely. These renters are overwhelmingly African-American and many of these families have children. Should all or most of these folks be evicted, it would be an unimaginable tragedy.

Despite $46.6 billion in federal passed into law last December and March,�� relatively little money has made it into the hands of people who need it. According to a from the U.S. Treasury, nationally only $1.5 billion was delivered to eligible households in June, which exceeded the amount delivered “for all three previous reporting periods combined.” That’s a paltry 3.2% of the funds distributed in six months.

The situation in Ģ����Ƶ is not much better, :“As of July 20, only about 6% of the $710 million that Ģ����Ƶ and select local governments received in federal aid had gone to households at risk of eviction or behind on rent.”

��The U.S. Treasury is relying on state and local housing assistance agencies to reach the people in need. According to a by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there are 484 state and local programs charged with determining eligibility and dispensing the benefits nationwide.

The Treasury fanned out responsibility to counties and cities with populations over 200,000 plus state governments. Each governmental unit set up their own system for administering the program funds, which can be by the state agencies or county governments themselves, or through public housing authorities or non-profits charitable organizations.

In Ģ����Ƶ, for example, responsibility fell to 13 governmental units: Atlanta City, Augusta-Richmond County Consolidated Government, Chatham County, Cherokee County, Clayton County, Cobb County, DeKalb County, Forsyth County, Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Hall County, Henry County, and the State Department of Community Affairs.��

These governmental units structured their responses differently, creating new administrative structures or funneling the money through non-profits that were quickly overwhelmed. Many people report complicated paperwork and some landlords have refused to take partial payments on back due rent.

It appears unlikely the situation for tenants will improve much before the extended eviction moratorium expires in 60 days. And we haven’t touched on the millions of small landlords who are behind on mortgage payments, taxes, and other liabilities. Sadly, this situation has the markings of a slow-moving economic and humanitarian disaster.

What can be done?��

For the long term, the solution is clear. The entire fiasco could have been avoided if our vision of a fully integrated eligibility system were in place. Ģ����Ƶ is partially there with the Ģ����Ƶ Gateway that coordinates applications for food stamps, Medical assistance, child care, and two other programs. Rental assistance also needs to be part of the Gateway.

Moving forward, Ģ����Ƶ should continue to add additional safety net programs to its Gateway unified eligibility system. Federal housing programs are not currently part of the system. Adding these programs would allow for a much swifter determination of eligibility and distribution of emergency money in times like these.��

Clearly, governments must speed up the distribution of aid money to tenants and landlords. Governments can also extend the same grace to landlords they are demanding landlords extend to tenants. Additionally, Congress should resist the urge to extend enhanced unemployment benefits and remove other disincentives to work such as the exacerbated benefit cliffs found in the emergency SNAP benefits. The problem of looming evictions will only continue to grow until more people return to work and are able to pay rent on their own.��

The post Eviction Moratorium Expired and the House of Representatives Left Town. What now? appeared first on For Opportunity.

A focus on the state legislature and the policies��effecting Ģ����Ƶn’s everyday life.��

Buzz Brockway, VP of Policy, is in downtown Atlanta at the state Capitol building, and walks us through the the last day or sine die of the legislative session.��

Our state lawmakers create��policies that better the lives of Ģ����Ƶns. Learn more about active legislation and how it translates into everyday life for all of us.

The post GET BUZZ’D AT THE STATE CAPITOL appeared first on For Opportunity.

A focus on the state legislature and the policies��effecting Ģ����Ƶn’s everyday life.��

Buzz Brockway, VP of Policy, is in downtown Atlanta at the state Capitol building, and walks us through the proposed changes to The Special Needs Scholarship, occupational��licensing, a current protest, and more.

Our state lawmakers create��policies that better the lives of Ģ����Ƶns. Learn more about active legislation and how it translates into everyday life for all of us.

The post Get Buzz’d At the state Capitol appeared first on For Opportunity.

For some students virtual classes during the past year have been fine. Some have even thrived. But for many special needs students, it has not gone well, as a parent tells the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity:

A virtual classroom worked fine for Jennifer’s two older children, but her youngest son, 10-year-old Joey, has Down syndrome. Online learning is entirely unworkable for him due to his special needs.

For example, DeKalb is following a normal bell schedule but staying engaged on Zoom for hours on end is not working. Morning classes will sometimes go well, but by lunchtime Joey is tuned out. It is impossible to get him back online after the lunch break for specials, such as music and art, and Jennifer cannot stay tied up until 2:30pm every day. She has seen academic and social regression for her son as he has little to no interaction with peers.

Additionally, his academic growth is limited due to repetitive practice of current skills on worksheets with no new individual instruction to learn new concepts in language arts or math. As a highly visual and experiential learner, he is missing the magic that happens in a classroom that cannot be replicated on a Zoom call.

“It’s day-by-day and minute-by-minute,” Jennifer shares. “One class he is engaged and on task, and the next minute he is hiding under the bed or taking his shirt off.”

All children, no matter their needs, deserve the opportunity for a��high-quality education that meets their individual��requirements.��

Today, on 130 studies on the safety of school reopening. The report found:

• Any benefits to closing schools are far outweighed by the grave risks to children from remote-only schooling — risks that intensify the longer it continues, the report says.
• The harms include academic loss — so severe that it could set children back for life — and mental health problems related to loneliness and isolation.
• There are also severe hardships on parents — mothers in particular, about two million of whom have left the workforce to care for their kids as part of remote learning.
• “Schools are not super-spreaders,” observes the report, written by John P. Bailey, a former deputy policy director at the Department of Commerce.

Fortunately for face to face learning. The rest need to reopen ASAP, and plans need to be made to help students who fell behind catch up.

This post on on March 11, 2021.

The post Many Special Needs Students Have Struggled with Virtual Classes appeared first on For Opportunity.