patrick.net

So, as usual, common sense has to come from outside California.

A judge says a group of low-income students of color in California can go to trial in a lawsuit accusing state education officials of failing to provide the neediest students with adequate equipment and services to learn remotely during the eight months in 2020 when schoolhouse doors were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Studies that the state does not dispute show that “educational inequality increased from 2019 to 2022 and achievement gaps widened” between public school students of different races and income levels in California, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman said Tuesday.

And during the pandemic, he said, the evidence shows that the state “implemented a remote learning policy that failed to provide all students with computers and internet access,” and that state officials knew that non-white and low-income students were being harmed worse than others. Seligman said a trial would determine whether the state had violated discrimination laws and a state constitutional guarantee of educational equality.