A novel proposal to help millions of kids struggling with online school

We must roll out a Digital Learning Ambassadors corps immediately, staffed by young adults in predominantly immigrant communities. Millions of young people, like my students at Rutgers University, are either completing remote coursework at home or graduated this past spring. They are looking for meaningful, paid work. As tech-savvy, native speakers of languages spoken by the K-12 students who struggled most in remote learning this spring, they are our best untapped resource for supporting better learning experiences this fall.

A Digital Learning Ambassador corps need not be expensive and has precedent in national policy. When the Federal Communications Commission released its National Broadband Plan in 2010, it proposed a Digital Literacy Corps with the same principles outlined here but with a broader mandate of serving all local residents. The intervening decade provides many models that could be rapidly adapted to train Digital Learning Ambassadors.

[Vikki Katz is an associate professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University]