Remote learning is consistently associated with decreased instructional opportunities and student outcomes when compared to in-person schooling, according to data from a RAND Corporation study.
Researchers surveyed teachers and principals to gain a better understanding of K-12 students’ learning opportunities across a variety of learning models (in-person, hybrid, and fully remote) during the 2020-2021 school year.
The decreased outcomes associated with remote learning include less curriculum coverage, more student absenteeism, and lower principal-reported math and ELA achievement.
The latest data from the RAND study indicate that roughly 90 percent of fully remote schools offered at least one synchronous class per day. The data also show that more than half of teachers in hybrid schools (68 percent) taught concurrently–teaching students remotely and in-person at the same time–despite the difficulties that teachers have reported in doing so.
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