Coronavirus in rural America (Part II): Education

Following up on Part I regarding health care, here is Part II on the impact that the coronavirus is having in rural America, this time on educational access.

First up is this story from last week by Nicole Gaudiano for Politico, published under the headline "Coronavirus quarantines could rob poor, rural students of access to education." It suggests that 12 million students live in homes without broadband, which is complicated when the whole country--virtually--has moved to online learning.  Here's an excerpt from the Politico story:  

If the coronavirus forces schools to shut down for long stretches of time, millions of students will struggle to keep up because they don’t have broadband to do schoolwork at home. 

What’s known as “the homework gap” could be devastating for students who can't easily use the internet — especially in poor urban areas and rural districts where families don’t have a home laptop or high-speed internet connections. Federal and state officials have long known about the online education gap in America, but spending money to fix the problem wasn’t prioritized. If there are mass school closures, it will be too late.

Nearly 12 million children live in homes lacking a broadband connection, and white residents are more likely to have broadband in their homes than people of color, according to a 2017 report from the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee. 

In 15 states, the majority of rural residents do not have access to broadband, the report says. 

* * * 

Given local control of schools, continuing education amid lengthy closures may look vastly different — and with varying degrees of equity — from place to place. 

“They will rely on e-learning as much as possible, but they have to have a backup plan in place, which could include a more traditional presentation of textbooks, work packets, pen-and-paper-based academics that support learning in a way that makes it accessible for kids that don't have internet at home,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng, of AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

The "too late" part from three paragraphs up is what I'm hearing from my mom, a teacher's aide (now called non-certified personnel) in the rural Arkansas Ozarks.  Kids there went home last Friday with five days worth of homework, but I understand that many are not getting completed homework turned in--and many don't have access to the digital infrastructure to log on for online instruction. 

Another issue re K-12 school closure is how to feed the millions of kids who rely on free- and reduced-price lunches.  Many of those kids are also fed breakfast at school.  It's challenging for urban kids to feed those students--more so for rural districts because of the spatial barriers.

As for higher education, here is a story by Kate Reilly for Time Magazine:

Spring break just began for Kyii Sells-Wheeler, but he’s already wondering how he’ll complete his school work when classes resume in a little more than a week. 

A sophomore at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, Sells-Wheeler is one of thousands of students who have seen their colleges cancel in-person classes and transition to online learning as a precaution against the coronavirus outbreak, which school leaders have described as an “unprecedented crisis.” And a member of Navajo Nation, he is one of thousands of Native American students who come from reservations with notoriously limited internet access. 

“We still had classes today, so I was asking my professors, ‘What if we come from an area where internet access isn’t readily available or reliable?’” Sells-Wheeler, 20, said Friday, adding that many instructors told him they don’t yet know the answer. 

As the coronavirus outbreak affects people across the United States, educational institutions—including colleges where students live and study in close quarters, and K-12 schools where children roam crowded hallways and cafeterias—have been forced to take drastic measures to prevent the virus from spreading.

Several stories from last week also touched on college students who will be more disadvantaged by online learning--in particular first gen (first generation in their families to go to college) and rural students who depend on their colleges for housing and food.  Many of those students, including rural ones, don't have access to the broadband they'll need to complete online classes.  Two of those stories about colleges going "online" and sending students home are here and here.

In this post yesterday, I touched on the rural-urban divide in California's response to the coronavirus crisis.  Since then, more cases have been reported from rural California, though not nearly as many as from the Golden State's urban clusters.