Texas children falling behind in school due to COVID-19. How the Legislature can help

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar delivered good budget news Monday as lawmakers began their session: The expected budget shortfall isn’t quite as big as feared.

There will still be belt-tightening, though, so forgive school superintendents who’ve seen their state funding yo-yo over the years if they appear jittery until the final gavel bangs in May.

The challenge is that in 2019, when the coffers were packed after years of a strong economy, the state assumed a greater share of overall education funding in hopes of curtailing growth of local property taxes. Lawmakers simply can’t lurch in the other direction. Districts will need steady budgets, at a minimum, to overcome the lingering challenge of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on learning across two different academic years.

The state’s last massive budget shortfall, in 2011, brought the first education funding cuts in modern memory. The impact was felt for years. It can’t happen again.

LOST LEARNING

Funding remains the top issue, but it’s far from the only education matter lawmakers must tackle. In this session, lawmakers must assess how bad the isolation of the pandemic has been for students, especially those most at risk of lost learning, and support solutions to fix it.

It’s not a question of whether students have fallen behind in the era of distance learning; it’s how much. And there are ample signs it’s bad.

In Fort Worth, the number of students failing at least one class this school year has skyrocketed, Star-Telegram reporter Silas Allen found. In Dallas, half of students have slipped in math, and a third in reading.

Distance learning was necessary as the pandemic erupted, but the tradeoff has been costly. Lawmakers must help districts make up the gaps. They should take a reparative approach, not a punitive one.

First, we need to know exactly how bad the problem is. That means testing. Texas has had a sea change over student testing in recent years, after decades of ever-increasing stakes for test results. Parents and teachers revolted against “teaching to the test,” for good reasons.

But you can’t fix a problem you can’t measure. So now is not the time to further scale back testing. Schools need tools to find out exactly where individual students are. At the same time, they shouldn’t have to fear negative consequences from the state based on these important test results. The Texas Education Agency’s steps on this have been good so far, as letter grades for schools are suspended. Lawmakers shouldn’t change direction.

The best way to assess students — and of course make up for learning gaps — is to get children back into schools. The Legislature should support every reasonable idea that will make that happen.

The spread of the virus in schools among children isn’t the problem. It’s the risk posed to teachers and other workers, and staff stretched thin as those potentially exposed to the virus must quarantine. We’ve said that when it comes to the vaccine, it’s a mistake to put healthy teachers ahead of vulnerable Texans. But as the supply increases, the state could get creative in working with districts to get employees inoculated.

HELP FOR SCHOOLS

The state must also help schools adapt to the pandemic more quickly. A capital program that would fund improvements in ventilation would help lessen the risk in crowded buildings. And schools may need help enticing retirees to come back to work once the pandemic wanes.

It’s time to get creative, too, on making up for lost time. Teachers have reported that some students have disappeared entirely since campuses shut down or are rarely seen. Enhanced truancy enforcement may be in order. And to catch up on lessons, schools might need extended calendars, perhaps even a period of year-round learning.

And as bad as online learning has been in many places, some distance education will continue to make sense. The state should investigate what’s worked best and help districts implement it. In some cases, the biggest concern is reliable broadband access, something state policy can help address.

Districts need steady funding from the state. But they also require flexibility and accountability to close the gaps for a generation of students, especially the needy. Lawmakers need to list and then act boldly on behalf of all Texas students.