To Combat Learning Loss, Schools Need to Overhaul the Industrial-Age Paradigm

In a guest post for Education Week (also published in Education Next), New Classrooms’ CEO & Co-Founder Joel Rose shares his thoughts on the shifts required to reverse the learning loss that’s taken ahold of our country’s students during the pandemic (as well as the decade preceding it). While the most recent NAEP results were devastating, many are overlooking the years-long trajectory these results are part of. Learning loss was an issue before the pandemic, and if we don’t change the way we do school, learning gaps will only widen.

How can our school system better meet the needs of each student, catching a student up on this skill or that skill when they stumble? How can we equip educators to accelerate students’ readiness for the algebraic concepts and skills that are critical to success beyond high school? Joel posits that one answer lies in doing away with the industrial paradigm that currently defines how we do school. This paradigm builds limitations into our education system. Learning is limited by the capacity of the teacher, and only functions if all students progress through each concept and skill at the same pace.

As Joel says,

“If meaningful improvement in our overall educational system could be achieved without tinkering with the industrial paradigm itself, we probably would have seen it by now. Yes, the reforms that animated the last two decades can all make a difference. But if national pre-pandemic proficiency gains of 2 percentage points per decade is the best one could hope for, it will take at least a century before the vast majority of students graduate college- and career-ready.”

For more on what it will take to combat learning loss and overhaul the industrial-age paradigm that is keeping it in place, read the full Education Week article.