Filet-O-Fissure

“Of the thousands of students I’ve taught in my 10-year career, Natalie is the brightest, sweetest and purest. She shines in my Advanced Placement English class, pushing the thinking of her peers while deftly articulating her own ideas. A relentless hard worker, she juggles two other AP classes, honors math and extracurriculars. Outside of school, she finds time to help her mom, an immigrant from Ecuador, sell Icees from a cart in downtown Brooklyn, while at home she translates bills and documents for her…” When I taught high school, I had a student like Natalie. Today, she’s the dean of a law school. But the pandemic has saddled these kids with yet another disadvantage. Like Natalie, they don’t have WiFi. This is an urban issue, it’s a rural issue, and it’s an issue that is going to supersize the educational divide during the pandemic. Taking an AP test outside McD’s: The low-income student’s predicament.