Elizabeth A. Davis, the new president of the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU), told the NNPA that the pandemic had magnified the digital divide.<\/p>\n
“The digital divide is not new, and I am familiar with a lot of the inequities that have existed in D.C. public schools,” Davis noted.<\/p>\n
She has helped transform the WTU into a social justice, solution-driven organization dedicated to advancing and promoting quality education for all children regardless of their zip codes or results of a school lottery.<\/p>\n
“The pandemic has pulled back the covers on a lot of these inequities, and they’ve been glaring,” Davis added.<\/p>\n
“I refer to the achievement gap as the \u2018opportunity gap\u2019 because the achievement gap goes to capacity to learn.”<\/p>\n
“In our students, I have not met a student in my 40 years of teaching that did not have the capacity to reach whatever bar I set for them. What I have noticed is that the opportunity to learn for African American students, not only in the District but throughout the country, has not been there.”<\/p>\n
Davis said the inequities in education must be addressed in meaningful ways.<\/p>\n