NBC: UVA CURRY SCHOOL PROFESSORS DIVE INTO RACIAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC EDUCATIONAL GAPS IN MILLER CENTER VIRTUAL EVENT

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – The pandemic is showing many of us just how wide the racial and financial education gaps are, especially when it comes to technology and internet access.

The Miller Center at the University of Virginia hosted a Zoom discussion where three education experts from the Curry School of Education weighed in on this issue and how learning from home has revealed new concerns.

They all agreed that major income disparities disproportionately affect students and can even set them years behind during virtual learning.

“There have been heroic efforts by many school districts to distribute devices but if you’re a fourth-grade kid and you have a single parent who is an essential worker and or you have younger siblings to care for, you simply have no ability to access the technology made available to you,” UVA Curry Professor Bart Epstein said.

The experts pointed to the state and federal governments as the ones that should have intervened to help schools this year, rather than local school district employees carrying all of the weight.

This article was originally published here.