By Jonathan D. Harber

The pandemic has given us a chance to reimagine education. Yet politicians and school administrators are charging full speed ahead to re-open schools exactly as they were. For many, that may work just fine, but alternative models have emerged over the last year that should continue to evolve and thrive.

Distance teaching allows students to return to the school buildings while taking online courses. This model is particularly relevant for high school and middle school students. While core instruction is delivered online, the physical school facility offers mentors, meals, nurses, learning support, technical support, arts, physical education, science labs, projects, and social-emotional learning. Students are given physical space in a school building — something like a cubicle with internet, power, a laptop and headphones. Imagine what a school renovated by WeWork might look like. We need to unbundle how we teach from what real estate we use.

So, if kids are back in their school buildings, what are the advantages of distance teaching? There are many. Distance teaching allows schools to offer more class options to students since there may not be a critical mass of students in each school. For example, schools might not be able to offer courses such as Latin, Python Coding, or AP Physics either because they lack the staff capability, or there are not enough students to fill a class. Even for core classes such as math and English Language Arts, distance teaching allows for intervention and acceleration — grouping and regrouping students by achievement levels and learning styles. Students may have one group of peers physically with them in their building, and another group online. And of course, if students need to stay home, they can do so without missing a beat: no more sick days or snow days to set back learning.

Socially-distanced desks are seen at New Bridges Elementary School in New York City on Wednesday, August 19, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/POOL)

For those students on the verge of dropping out, online-at-school is a great alternative. Ultimately, instruction can be personalized to meet the unique needs of each child. Certain special needs can be addressed. For example, not all schools have specialists in areas such as dyslexia. But online, if students from multiple schools are combined, a student could receive world-class language-learning support without having to go to a special school — assuming there is even one to be found in your neighborhood.

Distance teaching also expands the potential teaching workforce. We have a serious teaching shortage, with no end in sight. Teachers who have left the field to start families, or other professionals who might be excellent part-time teachers, can all teach from their homes. Teachers can also teach in multiple schools, providing flexibility for districts while helping to scale curricular innovations across schools.

Not all online learning is successful — and some students respond better than others. In 2020, we learned that good online education mixes a healthy dosage of synchronous instruction (with live teaching using tools such as Zoom or Google Meet) with asynchronous instruction (where students work independently). Good online instruction requires talented teachers and retains live class sizes similar to those in person. With the assistance of educational guides at the school, children feel supported and families can choose the best instruction for each of their children. If this sounds fanciful, it’s worth noting that many schools (private, public, charter and colleges) have been implementing forms of this model as a solution to the pandemic.

And perhaps most importantly, distance teaching can offer a more equitable education. Long before COVID-19 arrived on our shores, only 7% of Black children were graduating high school prepared for college or a career. The most reliable predictor of school outcomes remains the zip code of the families attending — poor minority neighborhoods tend to have low-performing schools; wealthy white neighborhoods tend to have high-performing schools. By the numbers, it is hard to find a system with more institutional bias. Using distance teaching, districts and states can recruit the best teachers, offer higher pay, and place students through open lottery.

Out of necessity to cope with COVID-19, schools have been forced to accelerate innovation. Some schools implemented distance teaching and found success. Permanently unbundling real estate from core instruction can be part of a longer-term strategy to reinvent education and to rectify institutional racism baked into our current system. It might also prepare us for the next pandemic. If we are serious about educating children, breaking down barriers, and protecting our health, distance teaching and online learning need to evolve and go viral, long after this virus is gone.

Jonathan D. Harber is Chairman of Launch EL Charter School, Director at the Fund for Public Schools, NYU Adjunct Professor of Education Entrepreneurship, and Chairman and Co-Founder of StartEd Companies, Inc.

Originally published on the New York Daily News on April 27, 2021.

Reimagining education with distance teaching