5 Questions Every Education Leader Should Be Asking as They Work toward Recovery and Beyond

How educators can help build a better, more equitable, and coherent educational system

By LaVerne Evans SrinivasanOctober 18, 2021

After a rockier-than-hoped-for start to the school year, things appear to be stabilizing. Whereas hundreds of schools were closing due to COVID outbreaks in the first weeks of school, by early October new closures were down to a few dozen. Now begins the hard and necessary work of building a better educational system than we had before the crisis.

It would be hard to overstate the complexity of doing so while at the same time meeting the significant and immediate needs around student and staff wellness, exacerbated inequities, and unfinished learning as a result of the pandemic. We cannot afford another year in which students in historically marginalized communities fall even further behind their more advantaged peers.

With such high stakes, we need to be thoughtful about how we move forward. How we work will be as critical to our success as what we decide to prioritize. At Carnegie Corporation of New York, we’ve invested a great deal of thought and resources in recent years in understanding how educational systems and their people might design and implement policies and improvement initiatives to create a more equitable and coherent education system. Based on that work, as well as efforts by our grantees and partners, here are five questions we think every educational leader should be asking right now:

What are the few vital things we need to get right? There’s no shortage of evidence-based strategies for addressing the challenges of the moment, and a number of our grantees have offered valuable guidance. But our schools can’t do everything at once and hope to do it well. Educators and families are exhausted after the past year. Education leaders must pause to reflect on their communities and identify the things that are most important to get right to address the needs of students and families — especially those in historically underserved populations. And that includes their social and emotional needs. A narrow focus on making up for lost instructional time would be deflating at a time when everyone’s spirits need uplifting.
What capacities need to be built to accomplish those vital things? In education, there’s a tendency to add to the list of things we say kids need without making sure adults have the time, resources, and support to provide those things. If we agree that accelerated learning and equitable instruction are top priorities, then we must ask what our teachers need to accomplish those things. What guidance, materials, professional learning opportunities, and time do they need? What can we take off their plates to make room for these priorities? How can we use existing staff creatively? And are there innovative ways we can work to ensure that every student gets the instruction and social-emotional support they need?
How can we avoid putting all of the burden on one group of people? We have asked far too much of teachers and families over the past year and a half. In many places, they were left essentially on their own to figure out how to facilitate remote and hybrid learning effectively. This strained their abilities, eroded morale, and exacerbated inequities, as families with more resources were better able to make up for the lack of support. This year, we need to give greater attention to how all adults in the system can better support students and their families. For example: Who, in addition to teachers, can reach out to families — early and often — to discuss students’ progress and let them know where further support would be helpful?
How can we meet students’ individual needs? Students experienced the previous school year in dramatically different ways. Some lost little ground academically, while others were barely able to engage in school. Some lost family members, while others did not. The trauma of isolation affected each student differently. Some districts did a much better job supporting students and families than others did. The most productive way to move forward is to give each student what they need as soon as they need it. Our systems must be designed to do so. The same goes for the systems that support teachers and the other adults who work with students. Some will need more or less support — or simply different support — to adjust to the new realities.
Whose perspectives should inform our approach? An enormous number of things are being tried for the first time in schools right now, but we can’t hope to arrive at effective new strategies without the perspectives of those who will experience them directly. Before asking parents, teachers, or young people to do something new, we need to understand their points of view — what they bring to the table, what their needs are, and what competing demands they contend with. Including the perspectives of people who have long been excluded is essential. We also need to maintain the flexibility to adjust our approaches based on their continued input and involvement.

While these questions are especially pertinent in the present moment, they should always guide us as we work for positive change in education. We believe we can get much better results if we pay greater attention to addressing these issues.

In the coming months and years, we have an unusual opportunity to transform education in the United States to achieve greater equity, relevance, and rigor. An increased public understanding of the need for change — along with an infusion of federal dollars targeting traditionally underserved families and students — has created a potential “leapfrog moment” in the history of educational improvement and equity. How far we leap will depend on how human-centered and inclusive we are in leading the recovery and building a better system than we had before the pandemic.

For more on our Education Program, see Transforming Education for a Rapidly Changing World: Achieving Equity, Rigor, and Relevance through Human-Centered Systems Change.

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan is the vice president of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s National Program and the program director for Education.

TOP: Students of Montara Avenue Elementary School in their in-person class in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 16, 2021 (Credit: Xinhua via Getty Images)