Treading New Ground in Teacher and Technology Policy: Implications for Resource Deployment

While all industries were forced to transform themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps none were so affected as education. Within days, teachers, schools, and districts departed from instructional models that had been in place for decades and instead were pushed to a new technologically driven pedagogical system. Such a transition required considerable investment in educational technology that was perhaps overdue in the educational sector. The three waves of Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, which totaled over $100 billion in money to districts, have given school systems millions of dollars that they plan to invest in educational technology (Jordan & DiMarco, 2022; Turner, 2021).

Concurrently, attitudes toward technology in education are shifting. In the summer of 2020, 87% of teachers in a survey believed their ability to use educational technology improved in spring 2020, and 58% felt more positive about educational technology than before COVID-19 closures (Bushweller, 2020). While the impact of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic was not beneficial to student well-being or learning (Engzell et al., 2021; Lewis et al., 2021; Pier et al., 2021), particularly for those already-disadvantaged groups who were less able to transition to a remote and home-based learning environment (UNCESCO, UNICEF, & WORLD Bank, 2021), there remains an opportunity to look forward in how a more technologically developed educational system can continue to evolve.

It is also abundantly clear that there is an urgent need to develop and implement innovative policies to promote equitable student learning. The pandemic has amplified social inequalities and widened the achievement gap between white and wealthier students and their less advantaged peers. While learning growth rates were lower during the 2020–21 school year relative to pre-pandemic rates, these relative learning rates were especially low for economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and non-white students (Domina et al., 2022; Domingue et al., 2021; Pier et al., 2021). Funding from the three waves of ESSER holds potential for addressing these disparities and restructuring education to increase equitable educational opportunity as society takes steps back to normality.

Educational technology holds promise for helping to close expanding learning gaps, but it also runs the risk of exacerbating systemic inequalities. In an increasingly internet- and device-rich environment, survey data continues to show that low-income, rural households, and students who are black, Hispanic, or Native American are less likely to have access to smartphones, computers, broadband, and tablet computers at home (NCES, 2018; US Census Bureau, n.d.; Vogels, 2021). And black and Hispanic students were also more likely than white students to learn remotely at the start of the 2020–21 school year (Dorn et al., 2020). This association between non-white students, remote instruction, and relatively worse technology may help to explain some of the findings that learning growth was slower for students in remote or hybrid instructional environments than in fully in-person instruction (Domina et al., 2022; Halloran et al., 2021).

All devices are not the same. Many low-income families rely exclusively on phones for internet access, which come with data limits and time and technical limitations that hinder student engagement with educational technology (Joan Ganz Cooney Center, 2016). Ensuring broadband access at home and facilitating 1:1 student to device ratios are good policy starting places, but quality also matters. A student with a spotty connection on outdated hardware has a worse and disadvantageous learning experience than a student with reliable broadband and a fast and dependable computer.

Likewise, technology is a tool that may be differentially utilized across socioeconomic contexts. Not all teachers and schools have the training or familiarity to use the communication and information advantages technology can provide. Again, not all parents and students are well equipped to receive this additional form of engagement. It is the responsibility of policymakers to go beyond creating the communication and build engagement equally across all groups so that gains enabled by educational technology are not creating new systems on which the privileged entrench advantage.

It is also worth remembering that educational technology is useful insofar as the instructors in those spaces integrate it within schools and universities. ESSER has moved millions of dollars into educational technology. Still, individual instructors have different preferences and abilities regarding technology in the classroom, and thus the quality and extent of technology integration are likely to vary considerably. Instructors who can take advantage of new technological resources are likely to improve their ability to promote student learning and growth. But this still reflects a fundamental principle in education: instructors remain the most critical resource outside the home for student learning. Technology can facilitate a teacher’s effectiveness, but ultimately, any new policies, including technological expansion, are at the mercy of the street-level bureaucrats who implement them.

Thus, recruiting, training, and retaining a high-quality teacher workforce equipped to face the classroom challenges today remains essential for education. Hundreds of millions of ESSER dollars have gone toward teacher compensation—both in one-time bonuses and through teacher training, recruitment, and professional development (NCSL, 2022)—even though the three funding waves stipulated those dollars not be used for bonuses, merit pay, or anything similar unless immediately related to COVID-19 disruptions or closures (Zamora, 2021). But many districts still gave out considerable funds, ranging from $350 to $5,000, to compensate teachers for the extra work involved in transitioning to remote instruction and as an incentive to stay in the profession (Saenz-Armstrong, 2021).

It may be a missed opportunity that teacher investments were not as integrated into ESSER funding guidelines and as foundational as technological investments. While teacher advocacy groups would like to see permanent compensation increases through ESSER funds, these are not fiscally sustainable once federal relief money is used up unless states appropriate new funds (Heubeck, 2022). But more strategic investment in educator compensation may have better long-term benefits for compensating or recruiting more effective teachers or addressing teacher shortages in certain schools or subject matters (Pham et al., 2021). For example, Durham Public Schools in North Carolina offered bonuses starting at $3,500 to new hires that agree to work for the district for three years, with bonuses ranging up to $8,000 based on the school, grade level, and field of study of the teacher (DPS, 2021).

Investing in educators will be crucial to recovery from COVID-19 learning loss, and ESSER provides funding at a scale that could have meaningful impacts on teachers and the students they teach. As schools invest in teachers, they will need to consider the best ways of improving the teacher workforce and consider how resources can improve access to effective teaching, especially for low-income and non-white students, who, on average have less access to the teachers who are most effective at improving student test scores (Goldhaber et al., 2015; Hanselman, 2019; Isenberg et al., 2013; Rodriguez et al., 2020).

Hopefully, the worst of the global pandemic is now behind us. It is essential to consider how the rapid development and investment in educational technology can be utilized to promote learning opportunities during more stable times. It is natural too, perhaps mistakenly, to associate the traumas of social isolation, a global pandemic, and remote instructions as a sign that a greater reliance on technology is the mediating factor that led to stagnated student learning during the pandemic. But it is our goal to unpack a small portion of these complex and challenging years and present an argument that the innovations and resources demanded by the pandemic can be leveraged to build a more effective and equitable educational future.

This special issue contains four papers that offer policymakers and stakeholders insights into some key policy avenues relevant to this inflection point in education. While this research relies on pre-pandemic data, it provides critical insight into the significant federal investments made in response to the global pandemic. Specifically, these articles examine the educational technology environment, how future investments in technology may take shape, what important lessons should be kept in mind regarding equity, technology, and policy, and how resources prioritize effective education when so many students are playing catch-up.

The first article, by Hart, Jacob, and Loeb, begins this exploration by examining online course-taking patterns in Florida, a state that already established a robust online course-taking sector before COVID-19. Their research offers insights into how online course-taking options can expand student access to curricular variety and what students and types of schools most benefit from disaggregated instructional access. The paper offers essential insight into how an increased familiarity with computer-based instruction can be reimplemented in traditional schools to expand learning opportunities.

The following article, by Bowden and colleagues, highlights a case of how wide-scale digital learning was implemented in North Carolina over multiple years and the insights that can be gleaned as policymakers consider how digital learning may help address learning loss or deficits after the peak of the pandemic. They conclude with an important reminder that researchers and policymakers need to understand what is required to build on COVID-related technological investments and implement digital learning into classrooms, specifically regarding the substantial material and personnel cost in deeply integrating new technology and processes into the work of classrooms and schools.

In the third article, Baker and McCloud examine whether Texas’ “excess semester credit hour” policy, which imposes fees on students who exceed a credit hour limit without completing a degree, was equitably communicated across institutional websites for post-secondary institutions with different racial compositions. Disparate policy impacts across race or class are not a new phenomenon, and investments like ESSER can be utilized both to reduce the impact of the pandemic on education and perhaps more importantly, to address more foundational inequalities in education that the pandemic merely exacerbated. This work highlights the need to consider how systemic biases translate into digital policy implementation and communication and serves as a foundation on which future research on the racialized communication of education policies can build.

Finally, Springer outlines a conceptual argument for teacher compensation reform to promote learning opportunities for all students. The pandemic had disproportionate effects on low-income and non-white students, who already have unequal access to effective teachers, both between and within schools. Considering how new investments, like ESSER, can be more strategically deployed to prioritize the recruitment and retainment of the most influential teachers and distribute them equitably is now more critical than ever before.

In conclusion, relationships with and access to technology have changed rapidly in the last two years. While society may move back toward a vision of normality, the praxis of life, work, and learning has foundationally changed. Such moments of disruption are opportunities for innovation. We hope this special issue can galvanize considerations of how a new and more technologically integrated educational sector can progress toward better educational opportunities for students without losing sight of the fact that educator compensation and training systems need to better reflect market realities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher D. Brooks

Christopher D. Brooks is a Ph.D. student in Education Policy, Leadership and School Improvement at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill School of Education. His research is focused on closing inequalities in educational opportunity through social policies. Brooks earned his B.A. in English and Political Science with honors from Davidson College.

Matthew G. Springer

Matthew G. Springer is the Robena and Walter E. Hussman, Jr Distinguished Professor and chair of the Educational Policy and Organizational Leadership area at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research focuses on accountability, compensation, and incentives.