‘Thriving right now’: a rare take on remote learning

As coronavirus continues to spread, children’s education continues to take front line news as families and government battle out what is better for the school system. Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith looks into the developments of remote learnings and the various points-of-view on the subject.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance's special presentation of How 2020 Changed the World. While in-person schooling is preferred by the vast majority of American parents and students, a few groups have found solace in online learning in 2020. This has been especially true for some Black students and their parents.

ANNETTE ANDERSEN: Well, I think for me personally, I have seen my children thriving right now.

SEANA SMITH: This, safe to say, is not what you might expect to hear from many parents right about now. Nearly 93% of American households have done some form of distance learning in 2020.

- Anybody want to try this one?

SEANA SMITH: Most families, of course, are deeply unhappy with remote learning. But amid the stress, some Black families have found an upside. Annette Andersen is a parent herself and the Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools.

ANNETTE ANDERSEN: This has been an opportunity to keep our children safe and to be able to help them, and support them, in their academics in a way that we never have had the opportunity to do.

SEANA SMITH: Studies have documented the subtle discrimination that students of color experience in school. Now many Black parents say they can actively monitor and intervene.

- [INAUDIBLE], send those killer cops to jail.

SEANA SMITH: Education has long been an important part of the Black Lives Matter message. Here's how DeRay Mckesson, one of the founders of the movement, talked about the problem during a Yahoo Finance interview last year.

DERAY MCKESSON: The school system has never, ever, been equitably funded. So every year, the system is choosing between, you know, fixing a boiler, or buying textbooks, or hiring one-- you know, you're making a set of impossible choices.

SEANA SMITH: So what will happen when schools are ready to reopen? Many Black families may be wary of returning, even as a vaccine rolls out and leaders begin to say everything is safe.

ANNETTE ANDERSEN: People don't want their children to become guinea pigs. And so I think that this is going to be a long conversation for families.