According to McKinsey study released just this month:
nationwide, an estimated 17 million students have more than half a year of pandemic-related learning delay, 16 million students who need mental-health support are not receiving it, and 15 million students are chronically absent.
There are about 54 million students in the US. Fifteen to 17 million is just under a third of all students.
How many more students are more than a half year behind having nothing to do with Covid?
Maybe we should learn how the brain operates and then act in schools and outside of schools in ways that strengthen our critical thinking, resourcefulness, and social-emotional abilities?
Focusing on student test scores (AKA student achievement) just seems wrong. How are we enabling kids to grow so that they can take on their adult roles?
Donella Meadows taught us the potential leverage points for systemic change. While we tend to focus on changing inputs (like funding), outputs (like test scores), measurement (like assessment), or rules and structures (like curriculum or classwork or homework), you only really change systems by changing the goals and mindsets of the participants.
Like, maybe, Mindshifting?