经济学人下载: 中断的学校教育使不平等加剧(3)

When school closes poor pupils lose a social institution of last resort —one that educates, feeds, counsels and sometimes clothes them— whereas richer pupils are more insulated. A new industry of “learning pods”, where a cluster of families pool cash to pay for an in-person tutor, makes the governess model accessible to many. Scoot Education, whose normal business is providing substitute teachers for schools, quickly developed a sideline in learning pods in California. At least 100 such pods will be in place by the end of August, says James Sanders, the company’s CEO. For younger pupils the total cost of a pod, shared among all parents, is $349 a day.
学校关闭时，贫困生们就失去了最后一个社会机构，一个能提供教育、饮食、咨询服务，甚至有时可以提供衣服的社会机构，而富裕的学生则是更加孤立。有一种“学习舱”的新兴行业，就是一群家庭集资聘请一位家庭教师，这个新兴行业使家庭教师模式更容易为很多人所接受。斯科特教育公司的正常业务是为学校提供代课教师，该公司很快在加州发展了学习舱的副业务。斯科特教育公司首席执行官詹姆斯·桑德斯表示，将在8月底开展至少100项学习舱业务。对于低年级的学生来说，聘请一位家教的总费用是每天349美元，由所有家长分摊。

To some, parents who pay for pods or other tutoring are complicit in deepening inequality. Yet pods are more a flashy symptom of educational inequality than the cause. “Rich families find a way to opportunity- hoard no matter what, even if this pandemic had not started,” says Sarah Cohodes, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. Some charities, like the Tennessee Tutoring Corps, have tried to spread access to tutors to less wealthy children, but efforts at scale (a federally funded national tutoring corps, say) look unlikely.
对一些人来说，这些合资聘请家教的父母是加剧不平等的同谋。与其说这些家教是教育不平等的诱因，不如说是显著标志。哥伦比亚大学教师学院教授莎拉·科霍兹表示：“无论发生什么情况，即使是在疫情未开始之前，富裕的家庭都能找到囤积机会的方法。”田纳西州辅导机构等一些慈善机构试图扩大家教教授范围，让不那么富有的孩子也能得到教导，但是这样颇具规模的努力（比如一个由联邦政府资助的国家辅导机构）似乎不可能实现。

Failure to control the virus probably spells lower future incomes for millions of pupils. Without extraordinary interventions, the long-run effect of the pandemic on these students is predictable. The only question is how deep the damage will be.
未能遏制病毒传播可能会导致数百万学生未来收入下降。如若没有实行特别的干预措施，疫情对这些学生的长期影响是可以预测到的。唯一的问题在于损失会有多惨重。