Pre-K Through 12 Education and COVID-19: Landscape Analysis of Impact Indicators
North Carolina began bracing for the arrival of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in February of this year. The first known positive test in the state was March 3, and by March 14, NC Governor Roy Cooper announced an executive order closing all K-12 public schools to lessen the spread of COVID-19. Six weeks later he cancelled all in-person instruction statewide for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. The arrival of COVID-19 accelerates a number of pre-existing and long-term trends in Pre-K through 12 education in North Carolina, including state disinvestment in education, the growing gap between private and public schools, and the rise of online learning. COVID-19 is having a monumental impact on Pre-K through 12 education in North Carolina that will be felt for decades. From July through September 2020, our interdisciplinary, cross-sector team conducted a landscape analysis of national and state sources in order to identify the extent to which data are being collected around various impact indicators that are needed to answer the guiding research question: In what ways and to what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted racial and socioeconomic inequities in educational opportunity and access in North Carolina?
