10 Aug Long Term Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Impact on Minority Communities
The Coronavirus has hit hard across the U.S. It is particularly dire in rural areas and communities of color. Disparities in minority communities have stressed millions of people, from economic hardships and limited access to health services to slow internet speeds and lack of internet access at home. These problems did not surface overnight. They have existed for decades, filtering into classrooms and hurting students along the way.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the delivery of instruction in K-12 and institutions of higher education to almost exclusively online. It is imperative that educators and school officials continue to deliver messages of positivity to the school community and ensure that there is equity in the delivery of education. This is the perfect opportunity to educate students about the importance of equality, anti-discrimination, investigate harassment and bullying complaints promptly, and prohibit xenophobia.
School officials have an obligation to avoid discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin while cooperating with public health authorities to ensure that individuals are assessed and treated appropriately. School officials may not rely on assumptions or stereotypes related to race, color, or national origin in identifying students who may have recently traveled to a country with widespread transmission of Coronavirus or who may otherwise be at risk of the infection.
The US education system was not built to deal with extended shutdowns like those imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers, administrators, and parents have worked hard to keep learning alive; nevertheless, these efforts are not likely to provide the quality of education that’s delivered in the classroom.
Even more troubling is the context: the persistent achievement disparities across income levels and between white students and students of black and Hispanic heritage. School shutdowns could not only cause disproportionate learning losses for these students—compounding existing gaps—but also lead more of them to drop out. This could have long-term effects on these children’s long-term economic well-being and on the US economy as a whole.
Despite the enormous attention devoted to the achievement gap, it has remained a stubborn feature of the US education system. In 2009, it was estimated that the gap between white students and black and Hispanic ones deprived the US economy of $310 billion to $525 billion a year in productivity, equivalent to 2 to 4 percent of GDP. The achievement gap between high- and low-income students was even larger, at $400 billion to $670 billion, 3 to 5 percent of GDP.1 Although we calculate these two gaps separately, we recognize that black and Hispanic students are also more likely to live in poverty. Yet poverty alone cannot account for the gaps in educational performance. Together, they were the equivalent of a permanent economic recession.
Unfortunately, the past decade has seen little progress in narrowing these disparities. The average black or Hispanic student remains roughly two years behind the average white one, and low-income students continue to be underrepresented among top performers.
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