PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Black male students have seen their education suffer the most because of the pandemic, local educators said at an online forum this week.
The inequities already existed and COVID-19 only made them worse, said Community College of Philadelphia president Guy Generals.
“We had a problem even before the pandemic hit. The pandemic has exacerbated problems profoundly,” Generals told an online panel assembled by the National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges.
Learning loss has been greater for Black students, Generals said.
“On average, there’s an expectation of about a six-month melt as a result of the pandemic, and this is based on other instances of disruption in the educational experience,” he said.
“For low-income students including Black and Brown students, that average is expected to be between nine and 10 months.”
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Of the 57 high schools in the Philadelphia School District, only seven are said to be academically “on track,” and Superintendent William Hite told the panel that those seven had the lowest percentage of Black students.
Those schools also often had community groups providing extra support, Hite said.
A study by the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin presented at the session said Black students struggled most during the pandemic.
If Black male students had a laptop or smartphone they often had to share internet access with a family member, and financial pressures created a challenge to have enough food for their families, said CCSSE executive director Linda Garcia.
Generals said Black men made up only 15% of CCP’s pre-pandemic enrollment. The panelists discussed strategies to get more Black male students to college, and ways to help them succeed once they get there.
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CCP has a Center for Male Engagement, offering students “support coaches.”
Hite said students reported that traditional school counseling wasn’t working, so the district is training school safety officers to respond to issues of equity and race.
“If we’re serious about responding to what we are hearing from our young people, then how do we then change the way we use the resources, in some cases, we already have?” Hite asked.
Hite said the district is working to think of education as a K-16 cycle.
“Particularly and especially our Black males, because they see – they hear ‘college’ and think about something that has always been representative of something that is not attainable for them," he said.
Generals summed up the challenge, asking “How can we get them to the finish line when they’re not even here?”