Schooling During COVID-19: How to Close Gaps in Education

Dr. Nicole Baker Fulgham, founder and president of the Expectations Project and author of Educating All God's Children, speaks with Rev. Jim Wallis about what Christians can do to help improve public schools for kids in crisis, particularly amid COVID-19.  

Baker Fulgham says, "Because the education disparities in our country are hundreds of years in the making and they are systemic, they follow closely along the lines of class and of course, race. There's a role for people of faith to be advocates on this issue. [We] are probably best known for our work on things like church school or synagogue, school mosque, school partnerships, you know, tutoring and backpack supplies, all of which are wonderful things. But because the problems are institutional and systemic, we can't tutor or backpack supply drive our way out of the fact that millions of kids are going to schools that are severely underfunded. Or that in many States, millions of families don't have access to high quality preschool.

"So let's tackle the policy and the systems change. We're going to get there faster. It's going to be a much deeper change. And that's what we believe people of faith are called to do with every system and definitely the public education systems."