Giving Compass' Take:

• A YouthTruth survey of 20,000 students in grades 5-12 across schools in nine states revealed that there are still challenges for rural, Black, Latinx, and low-income students participating in distance learning. 

• How can donors use this research to address equity issues and the digital divide during COVID-19? 

• Learn more about the education challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new YouthTruth survey of 20,000 students in grades 5-12 across 166 schools in nine states finds that while students largely feel school logistics ran fairly well during coronavirus-related closures, they don't feel remote learning provided academic gains.

Black and Latinx students reported having more obstacles to learning than their peers of other races or ethnicities, and female and nonbinary students reported more mental health and well-being struggles than their male peers.

The survey is the latest from the national nonprofit, which is built around the idea that by soliciting timely feedback from students, administrators can listen to that information and put it into action to get better more quickly.

Along with standard multiple choice options, the survey included open-ended responses — more than 40,000 of which were examined using hand-coding and machine learning. Among the themes the organization found were academic pace and agency, family connection, sleep and wellness, motivation and stress.

The results also further highlight the digital divide that disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx students, and low-income students overall. In rural areas, the issue can be particularly challenging, as some families live in areas so remote that local infrastructure for high-speed broadband — or even cell towers for mobile hotspots — isn't in place.

Districts have worked with both private and nonprofit partners to close this gap since the onset of the pandemic, with some service providers, for example, offering free or discounted service to low-income families. States are prioritizing efforts to close these access gaps with emergency funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Register the full article about distance learning and obstacles by Roger Riddell at Education Dive.