But if it saves just one life ....

Fairfax teachers on strike

In Fairfax, Virginia, the number of failing students has nearly doubled, thanks to online learning,

Fairfax is the largest school district in the state of Virginia. A recent demographic survey concluded Fairfax was the 7th richest county in the United States with a poverty rate about half that of the national average. If you’re living in Fairfax, you’re probably doing pretty well.

But data from Fairfax schools shows that the switch to online learning has not been good for students. The rate of failure is up substantially for all groups but especially for Middle School students:

Between the last academic year and this one, which for most students is taking place remotely, the percentage of F’s earned by middle school and high school students jumped from 6 percent of all grades to 11 percent — representing an overall increase of 83 percent from 2019 to 2020. Younger students were more seriously affected than older ones: Middle-schoolers reported an overall 300 percent increase in F’s, while high-schoolers reported a 50 percent increase…

Comparing grades achieved in past years to grades this year showed that the drop in good grades is significant and unprecedented. The likelihood of passing an English class decreased by 40 percent this year for all students, according to the analysis, while the likelihood of passing mathematics decreased by 30 percent.

Failure, literally getting an F, is just one measure of what is happening. But it’s clear that a large percentage of students are underperforming in both math and English compared to previous years, even if they aren’t failing outright:

It also showed that student achievement is seriously off-track in mathematics and English, the two course subjects studied, from what would have been expected based on past performance. According to the analysis, 35 percent of all Fairfax students are underperforming in math and 39 percent are underperforming in English.

—snip

Overall, students who were considered excellent students in previous years probably continue to be excellent students. But those who struggled in previous years are doing much worse in online classes: “Historically low-performing students are seeing an explosion of C’s, D’s and F’s this semester, the analysis states, far more than would have been expected based on their pattern of achievement in past years.”

The Post report focuses a lot of attention on the declines of non-native speakers and children with disabilities but the most striking statistic to me was the 300% increase in failure among Middle School students. That’s a huge jump and it means that a lot of kids are not going to be prepared to transition successfully into high school. Fairfax is trying to adjust, adding catch-up classes but it’s hard to believe that’s going to make up for a year of declines like this.

What’s really worrisome is the bigger picture. Fairfax County is one of the most well-off counties in the U.S. and is generally considered to have an excellent school system. If failure rates are doubling there, what is happening in more average counties across the country? It’s a safe bet that things are even worse in many school districts that don’t have the same top teachers or the same resources at home.

But not to worry, Fairfax is on the job:

Fairfax schools have developed a new curriculum to address the problem:

Teachers in Virginia's largest school district have developed a new "anti-racist" and "culturally responsible" curriculum that will be available to students as early as this fall.

Social studies teachers from Fairfax County collaborated with other Virginia public school teachers to revamp their history curriculum, using a framework from Teaching Tolerance, the educational arm of the liberal nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center. The new curriculum encourages students to "examine materials, events, and institutions critically attending to power, position, and bias" and will be available for use in 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 11th-grade classrooms.

Colleen Eddy, Fairfax County Public Schools social studies coordinator, said the new curriculum addresses the "overrepresentation of white and Eurocentric history" and the lack of "diverse perspectives" in education. Eddy singled out the district's U.S. history courses in particular, for which she says African-American history "deserves a truer and fuller account."

Teaching Tolerance’s list of "Essential Knowledge" for third through fifth-grade students includes teaching that "the United States was founded on protecting the interests of white, Christian men who owned property." It also says slavery was foundational to the growth of the U.S. economy and the country’s founding documents were created to protect the institution of slavery.

If there’s ever a day of reckoning where the enemies of this country are held accountable for harms done, and I suspect that day will never come, teachers should be right in front.