Education leaders and industry experts pin the future of educational success in Bexar County on student-centered classrooms and meaningful, relatable experiences for students.
That’s what panelists said at the 8th annual San Antonio Regional Public Education forum during a discussion titled “Learning Loss and the Teacher Pipeline” Tuesday at the Boeing Center at Tech Port. The event, presented by the San Antonio Report, also featured a keynote address by Holdsworth Center President Lindsay Whorton and the presentation of the Education Champion Award award to Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Mike Flores.
During the first year of the pandemic, test scores plummeted across the state and country, and while some ground has been made up, academic scores haven’t fully recovered. The 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress found that average reading scores were still three points lower for both fourth- and eighth-grade students than they were in 2019.
But panelists stressed the importance of looking beyond test scores and ditching the term “learning loss.”
“It does not capture COVID’s impact on students,” San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Jaime Aquino said. “We have to look beyond the academic perspective and consider the real-world learning experiences that our students, and all of us, experienced with this unprecedented event in our history.”
Akeem Brown, the founder and superintendent of Essence Preparatory Public School, a charter school, agreed, adding that the focus should be on “unfinished learning” instead. This approach suggests that students have not lost their skills and knowledge but require additional support to refresh and build upon them, he said.
“Learning is a continuous process, and it’s the learner who’s doing the work and so everything that’s happening in the school [is learning],” said Jeanne Russell, executive director of CAST Schools. “The conversations with peers, the teamwork, the relationships they have with caring adults — all of those things are what are going to contribute to the learning.”
Carolyn Castillo, deputy director for administrative and instructional services for Education Service Center, Region 20, said that schools should find a way to make students want to attend.
“It may not be the academics initially that drive them there,” she said. “But there could be other pieces that can keep them engaged.”
Those could be career-related courses, extracurricular activities or student groups, she said.
That was echoed by panelists participating in a separate discussion about the role schools play in closing the skills gap.
Panelists also spoke about the ongoing fight to keep teachers in the classroom. Aquino said that in San Antonio ISD, the district is adding more planning days and workload changes to help teachers. But compensation is still a major issue, he added. In response, the SAISD board of trustees is mulling the largest raise in 25 years.
Brown highlighted the need to showcase for young students that teaching is a valued profession. He noted this is particularly important for teachers of color, who are underrepresented in Texas classrooms.
With funding needed to incentivize teachers to come to and stay in school, panelists also addressed ongoing debates about public dollars being used for private schools. The state Senate Education Committee on Tuesday approved Senate Bill 8, which would create an education savings account using taxpayer money of up to $8,000 per student that parents could use to send their child to another school of their choice, such as a private or religious school. While different from vouchers, the legislation is opposed by most public school educators.
Brown said that the funding discussion should be broader, looking at how little schools are funded in general.
“The one thing that I hope will come out of this … is we will have a conversation about how we fund education,” he said. “Because there’ll be some folks … saying ‘Is this it?’ when they start receiving [vouchers].”
Aquino, who has been outspoken about vouchers, lambasted the proposals, saying they would be the wrong move for education in Texas.
“It is going to benefit more middle-class families,” he said. “[For] a low-income family that’s not going to be enough to pay the entire tuition at a private school.”
