Nancy Bailey has 22 reasons why schools should not open this fall.
Here are the first four:
1. Illness and Russian Roulette
According to the CDC, the risk might seem low for children, but they still get sick, some seriously. Children and teenagers have died. Questions still surround the disease. It’s not worth the risk. Maybe the situation will improve by January, or next summer. Currently we’re experiencing a pandemic and safety is the number one concern.
2. How Will the Flu and Covid-19 Tango?
Maybe Covid-19 alone doesn’t affect children as badly as adults, but what if you mix it with the flu? Every year the flu kills children. Last January, before Covid-19 became well known, 27 children had died of the flu. What will the dance of these two illnesses look like in the fall?
3. Adults Matter Too!
A large concern with children is that they can spread the disease to teachers, parents, and grandparents who could be vulnerable. It isn’t fair to risk their health by reopening schools. Teachers and staff should not have to fear their workplace.
4. Lacking Consensus
Adults can’t agree on recommendations surrounding Covid-19, so how can teachers protect children brought together in the classroom? Some students will want to wear their masks, others won’t. Some students will take the virus seriously, others won’t.
Agree or not, Nancy is always thoughtful.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Pediatricians are now calling for schools to re-open citing that children are not as at risk of complications or even transferring the virus.
I whole-heartedly disagree with this assessment.
It has not been fully studied whether children are carriers or not. Yes, some evidence suggests not, but we know very little about this disease and I have not seen one peer-reviewed study that corroborates this observation. There was mention of the YMCA centers that remained open for care of the children of essential workers that showed very little, if any, transfer. However, if one compares the activities of the YMCA to school, one would see that school has far more complicated necessities and nuances that you won’t find at the Y. If the two environments were comparable, why don’t we just skip school altogether and send everyone’s child to the YMCA instead?
Regardless, if children are not necessarily carriers of this virus, they are definitely super spreaders of flu and colds. Schools are Petrie dishes for all sorts of viral infections, so now we are putting adult staff members at greater risk for complications should they be exposed to SARS-CoV2 because their immune systems are already fighting against the flus and colds that children spread. I don’t know about you, but I would want to be at my optimum level of health during a pandemic, not in a fight against all other viruses on top of this one.
Asking pediatricians if schools are safe environments for adults is like asking doctors who specialize in geriatrics to weigh in with best practices in pre-school.
Love your last paragraph:
“Asking pediatricians if schools are safe environments for adults is like asking doctors who specialize in geriatrics to weigh in with best practices in pre-school.”
So TRUE.
These pediatricians don’t know what they are talking about. How about they put their lives at risk and families’ lives at risk and for WHAT?
Exactly. People who grow up in 2nd or 3rd world countries often learn at a differing pace compared to their counterparts in more affluent nations, but they can learn. When it comes to public health vs. education, we have to weigh the outcomes: Kids are going to get behind at all the same rates and there is a strong possibility they will eventually be back on track to where they were. We know that there are some developmental years that are more critical than others, so we can make a case for the youngest and special needs populations to have more support and, dare I say, even some in-person attention, but the strain on districts to provide the personnel to run a hybrid model will be more than budgets will allow.
We have to remember that putting off traditional methods of running our schools is expected to be temporary in the scheme of things but death and long-term health effects from infection are permanent.
Opening schools is a priority because it will free up parents to go to work. This country does not have the best interests of its citizens as a main goal. Pumping up economy before the election is why politicians want the schools to open. Teachers and students are mere pawns.
‘retired teacher’ is spot-on.
And that tirade by ‘Rant’ Paul was so full of logical holes as to approach absurdity. European schools in certain countries are opening because those countries have knocked down new cases to a trickle. They engaged in severe social distancing measures. Meanwhile, in the US, new cases are at an all-time daily high.
Exactly, Yvonne. These people have no freaking clue what they are talking about.
Also, there’s new evidence that Covid-19 in kids can lead to long-term neurological damage.
As well as new evidence that kids 10 and older are infected at the same rate as adults are.
Some people in my state are now starting to say “defund schools,” because “teachers aren’t working.” We will get stuck back at school whether it’s safe or not.
Retired Teacher,
You and I both need many millions of people to go back to work. Without them we have no food, no water, no power, and no one to care for us when we are sick. The very least I can do is to take on some risk of contracting this disease to educate them or their children if called upon.
Right. Kill the children and their teachers for the sake of the economy.
TE, are you seriously admitting that you rely on other people in order to live? ::faints:: 😂
LG,
Of course I rely on other people for my survival. The only way that I can look them in the eye is by willing to risk my own survival for them. I am sure that you feel the same.
Oh yes, TE. I rely on other people to do their part not to spread illness and death. The economy part, we can figure out. There is a lot of money out there being appropriated for many systems. The federal government can modify its budget to get people back on their feet, but it would take some hard work. Planning and implementing how we rebuild society is not in the toolkit of the current administration, however. It is only fitting that it goes down in flames, but it doesn’t have to take some many lives with it. We need to be able to rely on people to do the right thing and keep us safe. And if that means that non-essential businesses shut down again, it won’t kill us if we have a plan to bring everybody back up. These times are not normal and we all need to stop sniveling about haircuts and bars and start thinking about what we ALL could do to protect each other until we are collectively safe from this virus. Does that mean we should be clamoring for schools to open because the current (dreadful and uneven) economy is more important to save than the lives of our citizens?
LG,
Why do you assume that essential businesses will be able to stay open?
If schools remain closed it may be difficult to staff the food supply chain, hospitals, and other health care facilities. My university’s pandemic plan includes using our lab school to teach the children of the medical staff at our teaching hospital because we are concerned that childcare responsibilities will force staff members to stay home.
Were they able to for the first two months?
Nancy Bailey’s points are spot on. We know that remote instruction has many flaws but thinking that we can reopen schools in our country which lacks a functional federal government and where the disease is getting wildly out of control is probably magical.
I just think you are taking a real risk that people in government who never supported public schools are going to just RUN with this, and we won’t get full time, staffed schools back.
They’re already coming up with contract plans for “distance learning” and as you all know Jeb Bush and other ed reformers have been pushing cheap online learning on poor and middle class schools for years.
I think we end up with an entire system made up of low quality “cybercharters”, and we KNOW how bad they are. We have 20 years experience with them.
They couldn’t do distance learning well when they had a whole sector of charters devoted to it, they were flush with cash, and had tons of elite ed reformers promoting it.
They don’t support public schools on the best day. How bad will it get on the worst day?
We’re already being told “nothing can be done” and we must accept a much-reduced “school” for next year. Honestly, knowing what we know about the powers that be in education and their complete disregard for public school students, we REALLY think they’re going to reopen staffed schools if they they find out they can get away with 5k a year per student and some garbage K12 contract?
Go read ed reformers.This is Katrina to them. They’re proposing what they always propose to “reinvent” and privatize schools except now they’re claiming it must be done in response to Covid. Same exact agenda.
Chiara, I agree with your intent, but I don’t particularly believe that my health and that of my family members including my elderly mother who lives with us, my diabetic husband and my Kindergartener are worth risking for a cause that we will be fighting for years to come anyway.
These conditions are temporary and if this pandemic did anything for schools, it showed how essential they truly are. I am not advocating for helping the ed reform ambulance chasers, but I am not going to sacrifice public (and private) health to ward off these enemies. We will fight the good fight when this is over.
One thing I will say is not only did this pandemic shine the light on the inequities in our infrastructure, but it certainly showed how interdependent we are on our economy and each other. This may pave the way for a better political future for us as more and more people are seeing the problems up front.
It is not just a slight possibility that education will be transformed greatly when this pandemic is under control—for better and for worse—but I for one want to be at the table when it comes to regulating these changes. Can’t do that if I’m dead.
I fear there will be an exodus of kids and parents out of public schools if all we’re offering them is “can’t”. They will find somewhere to put their kids in school. They have to.
No one in government is going to fund our schools if they’re not open. They barely bother with our schools as it is. I can’t imagine how bad it will get if it’s all “remote”.
This is why we have to fight and remind the public that while it may not be the optimum situation, it is temporary.
We have a special interest problem in this country. We may view online delivery of education as temporary. If enough billionaires buy enough representatives, cyber delivery of content could become more permanent.
They’re not giving public schools any assistance to handle the crisis as it is. How much do you think we’ll get if we announce we can’t open for the foreseeable future? And this is BEFORE state revenue tanks.
They’ve been looking for a reason to defund public education. We’ll have only ourselves to blame if we give them one.
Hello “cybercharters”. If they know they can get away with some cheap approximation of “schools” for the unwashed masses they will be more than happy to provide it.
You’ll get a laptop and some garbage “playlist”.
We need to get DeVos out of education.
Hello and Good afternoon everyone,
I don’t understand the consistency or lack thereof in this whole decision-making process of trying to reopen schools. I live in an area that doesn’t have a huge spike in cases and the case numbers are relatively low. Yet, there can still only be 2 -3 people in a hair salon at one time. My friend had to bring her dog to the vet and she was not allowed to set foot into the vet’s office. She had to wait outside in the car during his appointment. Gov. Cuomo is forcing malls to have Hepa filters installed in the air systems before they can open. Will schools have to install Hepa filters, too? If not, why? Are people who go to malls worth protecting more than students and staff in schools? Will these filters really work? There seems to be little consistency in the decisions being made. I don’t see how schools can open until we have a national plan to make PPE for what’s to come as well as a real plan on how this nation is going to deal with this. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but this thing is not going to get any better by September. We have a federal government in denial. Until we face this thing head on, it’s not going to get better.
We have a federal government in denial. Until we face this thing head on, it’s not going to get better.
Well said, Ms. Allegretti!
The notion that we can reopen schools in August is magical thinking. It’s making believe that what people want to be the case is, in fact, the case. It’s infantile and dangerous.
This is no time to be modeling the thought processes (if you can all these thought) of Donald Trump.
The precautionary principle alone militates against such heedlessness.
Nancy’s summation is excellent and deserves to be shared much more widely. I will do so with my friends and colleagues. I agree with the intent of the headline LG posted above, the rest of the article doesn’t have the coherence that Nancy’s does.
How much do we care about kids and teachers?
Well, we are willing to take a chance on killing a lot of them and subjecting a lot of them to a disease that will have severe long-term health consequences involving a number of bodily organs and systems.
Because it’s more convenient
Jackie Goldberg is so great. You should have seen her at the LAUSD Board meeting on Tuesday. She really got under Investment Banker Superintendent Beutner’s skin. See, when the pandemic was recognized in this country in March, Beutner immediately called “distance learning” the future of education. (In his online culmination speech for my school, failing privatizer Nick Melvoin said this would be not the only but the first class to have an online culmination ceremony. Yikes!) The profiteers were licking their chops at the idea of everyone being completely online from then on.
As of now, it’s obvious that people will not tolerate completely online school after the pandemic. So Beutner is trying to figure out how to get as many parents and teachers to accept forever online school as possible — blended learning. He figures only students with special needs and circumstances will need to go very much to physical school. He figures many students will do just fine only going to school once in a while. Jackie made him turn red and try to drown her out by loudly tapping on his desk while she was speaking when she said it’s impossible to deliver six hours of instruction in four hours online. He had to mute himself and turn off his camera after a while. The truth hurts when you’re in the middle of a marketing campaign. Online instruction is no viable substitute for in-person instruction — for anyone, no matter how much Wi-Fi and parental support they have.
Blended models are the danger. There is no such thing as a safe partial reopening. There is also no way to make online instruction work better than before. So what we really need to do is stay completely locked down — not just school but everything — until the danger has subsided. Then, we need to fully reopen, not in partial stages but everyone together. That way we won’t have parents having to choose between work and their children. That way we won’t have teachers and families taking big risks for little rewards. Wouldn’t it have been smart to completely lock down the whole country and wait until it was safe to reopen instead of partially reopening and causing the current spikes? There’s a lesson there. It’s better to stay completely online until it’s safe to completely return to school.
In order to prevent early partial reopenings and blended models, we need solidarity. We need to do what teachers in Fairfax County Schools are hopefully doing, and opt out en masse of partial reopening and blended models. Only by acting in concert can we keep each other safe, and keep public education from blended, Pearsonalized, online ruin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teachers-in-fairfax-revolt-against-fall-plans-refusing-to-teach-in-person/2020/06/26/84f52012-b7aa-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html
i read this….
This year will be my 25th year teaching middle school in a large district in Florida. I have stayed in the same school, so i have second generation students sometimes. My former students are everywhere, and I feel that I have given my best for those of my community. My district has decided to open full-on in August. Social distancing is too expensive, and masks will not be required. There is an E-learning option, but no one has any Idea how that will work or who gets those jobs. Let’s take a moment and really look at what is being proposed and how it will work. Perhaps you may have some answers for me that I cannot see to prevent me from getting Coronavirus
A public school bus holds 55 students. Each bus does three trips in the am: high school, elementary, and middle. Each student has a different home environment, so levels of caution about the virus will be different. Is that bus really going to be deep cleaned between pickups? At a particular middle school, there are 27 buses. At the end of the day, students all crowd together and get on those 27 buses that have done 2 previous pickups that afternoon. “Oh, and its 90+ degrees outside, causing students to bunch up wherever the air conditioning is. Then there’s the car line- imagine several hundred students crowding together, waiting for pickup. There is no way to enforce social distancing , and by the end of the day, middle school students are done listening. Time to go.
Breakfast- Schools provide free breakfast, and the cafeteria professionals work extremely hard in close quarters for little pay. (A shout out to lunch lady Shannon, best mac and cheese ever). They know the kids and interact with them on the line and at the register. If no one is wearing masks, cafeteria professionals will all be exposed at some point and pass the virus on to others, including their own families. Oh, and there are 1050 students rotating through the cafeteria during morning breakfast.
Lunch- There are the same issues except a smaller number as there are 3 lunches with 350 kids per lunch period, plus administration and teachers.
Getting to class- A bell rings and 1050 kids from 6-8th grades are on the move. They have 5 minutes. They are all greeting friends, trying to meet someone or just wasting time. Eleven min after that bell even the stragglers will be in class. Multiply this 7 times a day to account for each period. Passing periods are usually chaos in any middle school in America. If you have not seen this; I suggest you check out Youtube, tik tok and Instagram. Most students have a phone, so the videos of what goes on in a passing period. are out there.
Class- Last year I had about 26 kids per period. There is no room to social distance. Middle school kids get up and socialize anyway, even in the middle of teaching. Sneezing, burping, loud talking, laughing and sharing food are activities that all take place. If you didn’t already know,this is part of the beauty of middle school. They are hilarious, emotional, gifted, frustrated, angry, jubilant and acutely aware of what is going on with the adults in their lives. Oh, and older students bust into my room on the regular to visit. After being away from school for so long there will be some issues, and those will be worked out over a school year. I just don’t think it will be this year. This does not even take into account teaching, groups, and the 30 books and materials that are shared by all 6 classes. I can’t wander around class talking, teaching, correcting, encouraging, letting them share personal stories,discussing current events, telling them about that time I got hit with a water balloon in class, and anything else they are interested in. The classroom is a shared social space that does not work well without interaction. I have no idea how this could be done with the threat of the Coronavirus.
So the question is… what do I do? If I take a leave, the costs are quite high ($13,000 for health care alone). I will be guaranteed my position upon return the following year, but I will earn no money during my leave. Those kids will lose me in a time when they need that steady hand that has always been there. I am lucky in that I have some cash saved for my retirement, and I can use that, but it will mean working a few a years longer. My College educated daughter says” do not go in, you will be infected and die, the risk is not worth it.” My brother says” it’s the flu”. My district says, “ We are all good”. The CDC says, “ This is exactly what you should avoid.” I feel that The school openers have other motives like childcare and making money. What is a teacher to do?
Thank you for painting a realistic picture of what opening schools will mean. There are no easy solutions. As a teacher, you are caught in the middle of politics and a pandemic. These are uncharted times for all. You have to decide what is safe and best for yourself and your students.
This is not right. And people take you for granted, that’s the worst part of it. You won’t even get the “Thanks for your service” platitude. Heartbreaking.
Ok, but hear me out.
The childcare provided by schools allows jobs, and therefore money, back into the economy.
Money has a substantial dollar value. The stakeholders here are teachers, children, the elderly. These are all replaceable.
After all, if teachers had financial value, we would pay them more.
/s
Just shut them down for good.
Governor DeWine said today that Ohio schools are going to open.
Good decision.
I have a son with an auto-immune chronic disease. Is this a good decision for him?
I just think if you’re going to say schools should remain closed you should admit that what you mean is “schools should remain closed until there’s a vaccine”
That doesn’t seem like a defensible position to me. No other country in the world is taking this approach, where we’re jettisoning education for the duration.
Why people who work in public schools would want schools to be considered optional is beyond me. If we can go without them for a year with no harm suffered by children, why have them at all? Apparently they weren’t essential.
“No other country in the world is taking this approach…”
That’s true. Because they shut down to get it under control, they have contact tracing professionals, in some countries one per 5,000 people, ideally you’d have one per 3,000. They have not been lied to. They have national strategies and leadership. They do not have vast swaths of people ignoring the pandemic. They have strong social and economic support.
To compare us to them, given that virtually everything has been done wrong here and there’s no leadership, at best, until Jan 2021, and if all goes wrong, never again. I normally agree with you and your insights, but this is… I’ll just end it here.
sadly telling words: “To compare us to them…”
WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES ARE ACTUALLY DOING
Most OECD nations have attained far lower infection/ hosp rates than US, & maintained them for 6-8+ weeks before beginning to phase in reopening schools. So keep in mind: we have very few states in their position. Most will have a long wait to even BEGIN modeling their methods. But we should monitor and learn. Particularly any S Hemisphere nations w/those stats, as their calendar puts them in end fall/ start winter, when they’d normally be in full swing.
FRANCE. They have been in reopening on a voluntary basis, K-8 only [hisch remote], for nearly 2 mos. Attendance has been 17%. Macron just announced– w/1 wk notice– that K-8 will reconvene 6/29-7/8 for a mandatory 9-day session before closing for summer break. No masks; 3-ft distancing.
AUSTRALIA. The nation was generally in early stages of Phase 3, w/ schools in phased reopening since late April, but now there is surge in Victoria, w/many suburbs there locking down again.
ENGLAND. Srhisch level reopened 6/15, & teaching of essential-workers’ children & hi-acad-risk children continues, but only 1/4 capacity allowed in bldgs at a time. Full reopening not anticipated until Sept at earliest. Some younger children have been attending in various low-stats spots. TOTAL attendance to date [end-June] is only 9%.
WALES opened 4 days ago (6/29) to all ages, but staggered attendance [1/3 capacity at a time].
SCOTLAND will open 8/11 to all ages on staggered/ blended-learning basis.
NORTHERN IRELAND opens for some eldest students late Aug, then phased reopening starts in Sept.
Excellent reporting, bethree. Do you know of a single resource that has documented these data?
No single source, LG. I used google to get leads on which countries were reopening schools, then googled each country, looking for as local a source as I could find for details. Luckily there was one local report that summarized info for each UK country.
There’s lots more reporting to be done. I know e.g. that neither Spain nor Italy were even planning beyond “maybe Sept” a month ago. And that Germany a month ago was letting regions do their own thing, w/ a patchwork ranging from zero to a NE hisch that reqd neg test for each student to come back, w/plans to retest periodically. All that needs updating. Plus I want to see how Denmark’s methods are working, & curious re: NZ…
I’m wondering what parents do with their kids when school is out for the summer. How do they handle that? Do they have babysitters? Could some parents take their kids to work? My mother took me to work quite a bit. I kind of feel like we are in a wartime situation with no federal government plan to help us. We have to consider other ways of doing things right now. Unprecedented times sometimes need drastic measures for a while. I often think how crazy our whole world is to be based on an economic system. Can you imagine a world in which we didn’t have to work to earn money? I’ve read many an article about how work will change due to automation and other factors. I have no answers but a lot of questions.
It astonishes me that we are even having this debate. IF WE REOPEN SCHOOLS, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL DIE WHO DIDN’T HAVE TO DIE. And a lot of children will contract the virus and suffer serious long-term health consequences.
This is mind-blowingly stupid.
If my union and the school administration can come up with some sort of viable plan to reopen school in September, a plan that fits into whatever framework NYS Governor Cuomo and the state ed department and that committee etc….decide upon, and if parents entrust their children to me, I will be in my classroom, Bob. That’s just the way I see it. I certainly understand that there are people who can’t or won’t do the same. There are teachers who already have very serious health issues, for example.
And, I have been no fan of Gov. Cuomo in the past, that’s for sure. (For eg. the time I tried -and failed- to get tickets to his New Year’s Eve soiree just so I could confront him face-to-face about his idiotic education “reforms”.) But Cuomo has made a lot more sense than most of our elected leaders since March.
Some of my colleagues, well, I would trust them with my life. And, it may end up that I’ll be doing that in a couple months. Many of these colleagues are parents. And I think all the parents out there are looking for us to at least consider doing…something. Maybe that something just won’t work but we should be thinking about it…..
Teachers are most definitely essential workers.
Of course, whatever reopening takes place (this year, next year, whenever?) it will be unlike any school reopening we’ve ever experienced.
I’ve got some ideas about how it might work. But I’ve got lots of ideas about all kinds of things. I wake up at, like, 4 in the morning and then I’m thinking of ideas all day long. Once in a while they’re quite good….some are real duds.
I just know I’m going to have a really, really hard time sitting still watching this mess known as “distance learning” continue as it was this spring.
If “reopening” school means me sitting in a classroom in a plexiglass tube and I get to see each student individually once a week, face-to-face for, say, 20 minutes….well, that’s better than the totally online “world” we were just in.
But, like I say, Bob, that’s me. Hey, I don’t even own (or want) a smart phone. Plus, those phones don’t even work where I spent most of this beautiful summer day. I don’t think I represent a mainstream opinion, ha, ha.
Take care.
Imagine this. People actually thinking about alternatives. What a concept!!!
We can reopen schools when we have the ability TO TEST EVERYONE REGULARLY, do contact tracing, and isolate those infected and those in contact with those infected. Until then, reopening the schools is insane. Making this happen requires a massive federal effort.
Maybe that will end up being the consensus, here in New York State and elsewhere.
But what happens if that massive federal effort doesn’t happen any time soon, for whatever reasons? Or ever?
Wow, that’s a really depressing thought. I’m going to bed.
Test AND trace is correct, but I fear that train has left the station, never to come back, even if it started today. I think the American Experiment is over and done with. Even if Biden is elected, much like Obama, he will have to deal with a catastrophe he had nothing to do with creating, but will be blamed for its perceived “failures;” failures that are inevitable based on the past three months, which will only grow at a geometrical rate by the time he might take office. The United States, as the Euro travel ban confirms, is and will continue to be a pariah nation. And the Lincoln Project darlings will be orchestrating the campaign against Biden and Democrats like AOC, Katie Porter, Elizabeth Warren, et al the moment the Idiot is out of office. Of course, if the Idiot remains in office because of the election or martial law that will surely be imposed when the election is cancelled, it won’t really matter. We are reliving the age of Romulus the Great. The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are making themselves comfortable in our living rooms.
I had some coffee and went back and read through the comments above and Nancy Bailey’s “22 Reasons” again.
There are lot of good points on both sides.
I think it’s interesting that Diane was summarizing the “22 Reasons” then stopped at #4….”Lacking consensus”.
Can a consensus be reached in this country…hell, in our school districts or even this blog (where people tend to see eye to eye on many things)?
When was the last time we could say there was something akin to a consensus about public education in the United States? (Diane knows the history, I’m curious as to what she thinks?)
Decisions will be made, though, and if not by us, then who (or what) will be making them?
I went out into the garage just now and found a Ross Douthat op-ed piece from the June 28 NY Times. (It was in the stack of paper I use to get roaring campfires started . So, it’s just been given a reprieve from probably going up in smoke this weekend as I drink beer and contemplate the stars.)
Douthat’s piece, “Waking up in 2030”, is about trends that were already there in our society pre-COVID-19 The pandemic has put some of those trends on fast forward. .And, according to him, it doesn’t look good for the future, which is really….now..
Yeah, Douthat’s a conservative guy at the Times but I have to agree with his main point, so much so that I was thinking about it as I was drinking beer and contemplating the stars last weekend.
Before the pandemic, students in my classroom were already spending lots of time on their machines (their smart phones) disengaging from the physical reality of what I was doing in my classroom -good, bad or indifferent.
And, they just spent three months at home doing even more of that….a lot, lot more. Where does that leave me and all of us as teachers whenever we do go back to school? And, to life after this pandemic finally subsides?
To be continued (I hope)….
John,
To answer a part of your question.
There was a very broad consensus in this country about the importance of protecting and improving public schools until the late 1950s. Being for public education was bipartisan. The only controversy was whether the federal government should help support them. When LBJ proposed federal aid for public schools, Catholic leaders wanted a share for their schools (they complained of double taxation since they paid for public schools and their own schools). The idea of “school choice” originated with the southern segregationists, who thought that everyone should choose their own school, and used that as a way to neuter the Brown decision.
Thanks.
So the consensus broke down in the 1960s. It’s amazing to me how that decade still lives with us in such a big way. The issues that were raised then in the 1960s….we’re still trying to figure them out.
I wonder if anyone has started to think of how actual learning will take place in schools if they open with some of the suggested “safety” precautions. Everyone will wear a mask. Students and staff will have to have frequent medical checks. Passage in the hallways will be different. Students may only have contact with a reduced number of other staff and students per day. So, think about that. A student might stay with his/her particular group for entire school year. I can only begin to imagine the personality challenges that could happen there. Students and faculty will (hopefully) constantly be observing their school being cleaned. They might be required to wash their hands a certain number of times per day. I guess what I’m saying is that constantly thinking about how students and staff are going to stay “safe” is going to severely impact the learning environment. This constant awareness of “staying safe” is going to have a psychological impact on everyone in that building. It’s difficult to learn when you are stressed, fearful and constantly aware of your surroundings as a hostile place.
I think the pro-reopening positions coming out from psych, sociological & now ped assns are absurd! Reality check: a global health crisis – a brand-new super-infectious lethal virus – has major bad fallout for everyone’s soc-emo health. Period. The children of the covid era have already had a shock to their psyches which will have lifelong effects. The loss of routine/ predictability — parental & social fear — profoundly affect children. We will see a future American generation whose attitudes resemble those of others whose lives are disrupted by war and famine.
Reopening underfunded schools precipitously, i.e., w/o remotely meeting CDC guidelines, will simply add to those ill affects. Teachers/ staff will return fearfully if at all, many parents will keep kids home, regions will go through cycles of shutting down/ reopening/ shutting down again. Compare to other OECD countries ahead of our curve who reopened voluntarily or on phased-in basis since late-April: attendance in France, UK 10-15%; re-shuttering in regions of China, SKorea, Australia.
As to politicians whining about lost semesters of school-learning, I don’t believe them for a second. Anyone w/an ounce of commonsense understands that’s a small price to pay for saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Worst case, covid era kids get K-14 instead of K-12, big freaking deal. Politicians’ concern is economic – avoiding a lengthy recession or depression. And that is no small concern. Maybe discuss it directly? Perhaps call a spade a spade: public school’s primary role at this time is babysitting for onsite workers. So assign the appropriate dollar-value to it, and safely babysit those who can’t stay home.
The model in England that you outlined above where only the children of essential employees are given in-person school is a thought, but it sounds as if it would also cause an even more difficult scheduling concern. Not every child of essential personnel fit into every grade and needs category neatly. It might end up looking like a one-room schoolhouse situation for a few months.