Nine Steps That Schools Can Take to Create Equitable, Innovative Plans for the Future of Education

A new Corporation vision paper explores how schools can effectively use federal stimulus money to address immediate needs, prepandemic issues, and long-term systemic change

By Carnegie Corporation of New York August 11, 2021

Improving Schools & Systems

With an unprecedented, one-time influx of money from the American Rescue Plan — $123 billion for K–12 public education — how can districts and charter networks effectively capitalize on emerging lessons from the pandemic to address not only immediate needs but also prepandemic issues and long-term systemic change?

A recent vision paper by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Looking Ahead: How Systems Can Support Students Post-COVID, draws on individual interviews with experts and a virtual meeting of Corporation grantees to provide nine key steps to creating equitable, innovative plans for the future of education.

1) Think ahead now
Many systems are still fighting fires rather than thinking ahead. How can schools look beyond the logistics of reopening, given concerns about vaccination rates in their community, COVID testing, personal protective equipment supply chains, and the rise of coronavirus variants? Says one expert, “Our advice is to pull up some of your most adaptive staff and create an advance team that can pull out of the day-to-day and start imagining the future.”

2) Meet present needs while building for the future
Corporation grantee Education Resource Strategies has suggested a “do now, build toward” approach to recovery and renewal wherein districts look to create opportunities for lasting change, including through system-level structures. School systems should consider setting up research and development constructs to support innovation in the long term. They might also use virtual schools and learning pods more intentionally as laboratories for innovation.

3) Prioritize
With so much change happening and so many students dealing with different forms of learning loss, it’s essential that districts become judicious and intentional with their priorities, such as focusing on quality instruction and the social, emotional, and mental health needs of students.

4) Practice inclusive decision-making
Including students, families, and other community members in conversations about school reopening and renewal can help to sustain and strengthen parents’ faith in their local public school. School districts might follow the example of the Ferguson-Florissant School District in Missouri, which has built an antiracist change team, composed predominantly of students but also including other members of the district and community, to determine how to move forward from the events of the past year.

5) Focus on the most impacted students
The pandemic forced many districts to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to learning and prioritize their most vulnerable student populations. Schools must figure out how to continue to reach these students, while also preparing for students who missed months of school or even an entire year. With hundreds of thousands of students still lacking consistent access to digital devices and the Internet, they must also continue to take steps to close the digital divide.

6) Restore and maintain relationships
Relationships and morale among teachers and system leaders were put under immense strain during the pandemic, as were peer-to-peer, family-teacher, and student relationships. It’s time to start intentionally creating environments that support the social and emotional well-being of students and staff and create a sense of belonging.

7) Accelerate, don’t remediate
School systems need to rethink their interventions for addressing lost learning time. A recent study by TNTP and Zearn Math found that elementary students who receive grade-level content with “just in time” supports — a practice often known as acceleration — struggled less and learned more than students who experienced remediation instead. Solutions might entail extending learning time and individual attention for students through intersessions, after-school learning opportunities offered in collaboration with community-based organizations. Greater flexibility in how time is organized and used within schools might also be required.

8) Support teachers’ learning
“We want these teachers to do something new and difficult, and then we don’t come up with a plan for how they learn how to do those things,” notes one expert. In addition to creating more opportunities for teachers to learn and grow, districts must remain cognizant of the challenges their staff have endured over the past year.

9) Reach beyond the schoolhouse
Many districts that adapted more successfully this past year developed strong community partnerships to respond to issues that schools could not address on their own, such as food, health, housing, and mental health concerns. Given the scale of needs created by the pandemic — including concerns about trauma, anxiety, and depression among students — schools will have to build systemic partnerships with community-based organizations to make sure all students have an equal opportunity for success.

Download the report Looking Ahead: How Systems Can Support Students Post-COVID

TOP: Kindergartner Allyson Zavala waves at her teacher after being in the classroom for the first time in more than a year at Maurice Sendak Elementary in North Hollywood, California. (Credit: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)