Committing to Equitable Outcomes for Students During COVID-19: A Focus on High-Quality Curricula and Instruction

The start of the pandemic in March 2020 caused a shift in k-12 schooling. Administrators, teachers, and students have navigated unprecedented times as they had to pivot almost instantly to an online learning environment. For global majority youth, many challenges have intensified due to COVID-19 including technology gaps, disparities related to effective teaching, and proper social and academic supports. As school administrators and educators meet this moment with courage and prime themselves to teach in a variety of settings (in-person, virtual, or a hybrid model), how we are engaging students becomes critical. In this 75-minute webinar facilitated by the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), participants will learn how Michigan and Virginia are committing to providing high-quality curricula and instruction to all students during the global pandemic. It also focuses specifically on the following four indicators of educational equity outlined in the National Academies reports Monitoring Educational Equity and Building Educational Equity Indicator Systems: • Disparities in access to effective teaching • Disparities in access to rigorous coursework • Disparities in curricular breadth • Disparities in access to high-quality academic supports Representatives from Chesapeake County Public Schools (VA) and Detroit County Public Schools (MI) will: • Discuss their priorities for educational equity, • Share their efforts to provide equitable access to effective teaching, rigorous coursework, curricular breadth, and access to high-quality academic supports during the global pandemic, and • Describe whether and how they are measuring their progress on those indicators.