NYC Schools Announce Plan to Close COVID-19 Achievement Gaps

Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza have released a plan for dealing with COVID-19 learning loss and achievement gaps.

By Melissa Wickes December 10, 2020

In response to the widening COVID-19 achievement gap that New York City schools are seeing in students, Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYC School's Chancellor Richard Carranza have begun to develop a Path Moving Forward plan. The plan aims to close the achievement gap and help minimize learning loss experienced by students, which Carranza says NYC principals have expressed to him.

The plan follows six main points:

1. Getting a baseline of what ground we lost. Carranza says this will be achieved through low-stake, diagnostic assessments city-wide and interim assessments throughout the school year to monitor progress and learning. The city wants to make it clear that these formative assessments are not high stake tests. They are meant to help teachers serve children and establish a clear baseline of what students need.

"You can't know where to focus unless you know what to focus on and that's the whole point of these formative assessments," says Carranza.

2. Increasing access to high quality digital curriculum available for every single school.

3. Launching a one-stop digital learning hub. A new learning management system will be developed and phased in, customized for NYC schools. It will house lessons and tools that can be shared across the city to help students, their teachers, and families better understand how each student is progressing, according to Carranza. It is meant to capture the work of students and make it available to everyone involved.

4. Deepening professional development for teachers. By doing so, teachers will have the accessibility to close gaps for students.

5. Expanding "Parent University" to continue to support parents with the tools they need to deepen learning at home in their language.

6. Confronting the trauma and mental health crisis faced by our students. This is rooted in healing and in learning because students need both, says Carranza.

Multiple methods of learning will be considered when attempting to close the achievement gap, including tutoring, creative projects, investigations, research, and other modalities of sparking intellectual curiosity, says Carranza. NYC Schools have been working with local universities and the 72 largest school system leaders in America and looking to other countries to see how they have all dealt with learning loss. and More information regarding this new approach will be available in the coming weeks. We will update you as it becomes available.

In the meantime, visit this page for everything you need to know about the 2020-2021 NYC public school year.