The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted learning for all students across the globe and has increased economic issues for everyone. COVID may have even made a “lost generation” (simons 1). As prices continue to go up but wages continue to stay low everyone is feeling the draining effects of COVID. Students in vulnerable communities are suffering the most –particularly people of color and majority-minority areas– with even before the pandemic having to “live under such challenging conditions that it made it difficult for them to get a high-quality education” said Paul Reville, founder and director of the Education Redesign lab at the Harvard Graduate school of Education (simons 1).
While there was always a gap between minority groups and ‘privileged’ white people. The gap worsened since schools were forced to start remote learning. Social interaction is one of the big reasons why students can learn and retain information, so after losing that to remote learning many students “struggled to stay motivated while learning alone in his[their] bedroom[s]” said freshman Jordan Spencer when asked about his experience in online learning(Fortin and Heyward 2).
Online learning is isolating and depressing. Minority students are more likely to lack the resources more privileged students have because, before the pandemic minority students were behind white students economically and educationally. Since the pandemic affected both of those factors it disproportionately affected youth of color. The gap between them is not getting smaller, meaning it's continuously harming these students–even after the pandemic– leaving them with an unfair disadvantage in their education in school.
Focusing on mental health the pandemic has caused devastating effects on people. With loved ones passing away from the virus, not being able to see family and friends, and not to mention the stress of being out of work and dealing with money problems. Mental health in K-12 students dropped exponentially over the months. when sent back to in-person school those feelings of anxiety, grief, and depression didn't just go away, it's continued to affect learning in the classroom “resulting in crying and disruptive behavior in many younger kids and increased violence and bullying among adolescents'' this doesn't just affect the kids but the school staff as well making school, in general, an overwhelming experience(Vestal 1).
The American Academy Of Pediatrics, The American Academy Of Child And Adolescent Psychiatry, and The Children's Hospital Association declared that the “pandemic-related decline in child and adolescent mental health has become a national emergency” They also stated “more than 140,000 children in the united states lost a primary and/or secondary caregiver, with youth of color disproportionately impacted” so on top of being more behind in education than white adolescents, students of color are also struggling with loss and all the emotions that comes with that(Vestal 1). How can people in the United States expect youth of color to catch up when right off the bat they've been given an unfair disadvantage? They start doubting themselves in their work, thinking they aren't good enough because they don't have the same resources as everyone else. They can get stuck in a loop of not having an education because their family didn't, they may have dropped out of high school to follow their parent's footsteps, which yes is a personal decision but not if the reason they did was that “they weren't good at school.” The problem with that statement is no one at home showed them how to be good at school because they're stuck in a generational curse that stretches throughout the American school system.
Some might argue that online school gives less of a disadvantage for minorities because educators can't pick favorites, everyone is receiving the same thing, and students don't have to miss school if they're sick or out for some other reason. Although that could be true, evidence from a Mckinsey analysis says otherwise “found that 40% of African American students and 30% of Hispanic students in the U.S. k-12 schools received no online instruction …, compared to 10% of white students'' this widens the gap between youth of color and white students ``even more tragic, there may be a tipping point beyond which the gap is no longer recoverable” this is disgusting to see and incredibly disappointing (Allen and West 2). There should be no gap at all, especially in education.
While it may appear that “they chose not to participate in online learning over the lockdowns, therefore causing a gap between them.” That would be a good point, however,” even before the outbreak, students in vulnerable communities,... were already facing inequality in everything from resources (ranging from books to counselors) to student-teacher ratios and extracurriculars” (simons 1). There was already a gap between minority students and white students before COVID, So that simply is not the case “Not having access to the digital superhighway limits opportunities for online education, telemedicine, and e-commerce and makes it nearly impossible to apply for jobs”(Allen and West 2). Going back to what the UCLA census data tells us “black and Hispanic households with school-aged children were 1.3 to 1.4 times as likely to face limited access” the evidence clearly shows that minority groups are more likely to lack access to technology therefore, also lacking the resources to help get jobs (simons 2).
Given the evidence proposed in the sources above, students of color are more likely to lack the resources white students have, because before the pandemic minority groups were already lacking vital resources and were behind white students educationally and economically. The pandemic didn't make things better for anyone but it hit minorities “10 times worse”, said Dean Bridget Long, the Saris Professor of Education and Economics(Simons 3). The gap between minorities and white people is not getting any smaller it's continuously harming these students.
We the people of the United States need to take action not only for the longevity of this country but for the future generations that will be responsible for the actions of this country as a whole. This means voting for candidates who encourage improvement in this area, candidates who have empathy for our future, and who care about what our educational system looks like. Fight for these students on a personal level, and help build confidence in themselves. This will not only be rewarding the individual but also level the playing field to truly make the United States a free country.
Works Cited
Allen, John R., and Darrell M. West. “How to Address Inequality Exposed by the COVID-19
Pandemic.” Brookings, 4 Nov. 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/president/how-to-address-inequality-exposed-by-the-covid-19-pandemic/.
Fortin, Jacey, and Heyward, Giulia. “‘It’s Just Stressful’: Students Feel the Weight of Pandemic
Uncertainty.” The New York Times, Jan. 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/us/students-pandemic-virtual-learning.html.
Simon, Clea. “How Covid Taught America about Inequity in Education.” Harvard Gazette,
Harvard Gazette, 19 July 2021, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/07/how-covid-taught-america-about-inequity-in-education/.
Vestal, Christine. “Covid Harmed Kids' Mental Health-and Schools Are Feeling It.” PEW.