Sarah Jones is an amazingly perceptive writer who has trained her sights in the real crisis in American education: not low test scores, but underfunding and stark disparities of funding.
Her latest article is brilliant. It begins:
Andrew Worthington’s public school was in trouble even before the coronavirus struck. “We have lead in the pipes,” the Manhattan-based English teacher said. “We have all sorts of rodents. There’s soot in the ventilation system. The bathrooms are constantly out of service.” When school is in session, Worthington said, most classes have over 30 students. About 80 percent of the student body qualifies for free and reduced lunch, and many lack the tech they now need to keep up with classes.
After the pandemic turned classrooms dangerous, Worthington’s students faced widening gaps. The iPads the school handed out could only do so much. “It’s hard for them to write essays on a tablet,” Worthington observed.
Like any natural disaster, the pandemic is a stress test for our systems and institutions. It locates their weak spots, and presses until something snaps. Public education could be its next casualty, advocates and experts told Intelligencer; a victim not just of the virus, but of something older and more deliberate, too. America’s public schools haven’t been properly funded for years. Twenty-nine states spent less on public education in 2015 than they did in 2009, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has reported. Local governments in 19 states cut per-pupil spending over the same time period; elsewhere, small increases couldn’t make up for drastic, state-level reductions. If schools buckle now under the weight of the pandemic, lawmakers bear much of the blame.
With school back in session, administrators and teachers alike must stretch already scarce resources to meet new demands. If school buildings reopen at all, social-distancing demands smaller class sizes and more teachers. If schools keep classes virtual, poor students need tools that their districts might not be able to afford. Because the pandemic helped spawn a recession, schools also face crippling cuts as state and local tax revenue contracts. A new report from the American Federation of Teachers projects a funding gap of $93.5 billion for pre-K–12 education, and an additional $45 billion gap for higher education. Unless Congress and Donald Trump can agree on a rescue package, the union estimates that around one million jobs for pre-K–12 educators will disappear.
Maybe no one could have prevented coronavirus, or something equally drastic, from transforming public life and public schools. But the situation didn’t have to be quite so dire, said Diane Ravitch, an education historian and the founder of the Network for Public Education. “We have been through a long period of devaluing public education, especially the education of children who are poor,” she told Intelligencer by email. “High-wealth communities invest in their schools. In poor neighborhoods, where children have low test scores, politicians have opened charter schools and offered vouchers, which saps funding from schools that need it most.”
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president of the National Education Association, put matters in even blunter terms. “I hear the word ‘chronic,’ and that’s a good word,” she said. “But there’s another word that has to be put with it, and that’s ‘intentional.’” Lawmakers, she added, “are intentionally, chronically underfunding our schools.”
Powerful and to the point.
The first words out of our governor’s mouth was that teachers raises were not to happen this year because of Covid. Testing? have to keep that so we will know how the children re impacted. Teacher evaluations? have to keep that too.School? just like normal, with classes as large as 35 I tiny rooms with broken heating and cooling devices and no windows. These are not fictions. They are what is happening on the ground.
What other conclusion can you come to except that the governor wants us to fail? Oh, did I mention he plans to keep the voucher proposal?
also: testing? WE HAVE to administer what has been massively paid for…
This sounds like Gov Bill Lee in TN, Roy. What state do you refer to in your comment?
Good morning Diane and everyone,
Dr Fauci says,
“In many respects, unfortunately, though this may sound a little scary and harsh—I don’t mean it to be that way—is that you’re going to actually be part of the experiment of the learning curve of what we need to know. Remember, early on when we shut down the country as it were, the schools were shut down, so we don’t know the full impact, we don’t have the total database of knowing what there is to expect.”
AND
It would be reasonable, but not essential, for teachers to wear something they can dispose or wash immediately after work, so they don’t have to bring their clothes home, he said. Some teachers have been purchasing scrubs for this purpose.
See the article:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2020/07/anthony_fauci_to_teachers_youll_be_part_of_the_experiment_in_reopening_schools.html
So now, my husband and I, both teachers, will have to go out and buy scrubs so that we can wash our clothes after school. What about the kids???? Should they be washing their clothes after school, too? What about their HUGE backpacks they will be dragging around all day? Should those be cleaned, too? I don’t know about other teachers out there but I’m not too keen on being a lab rat in a lab where the recommendations are always changing. Do parents want their kids to be lab rats, too? I don’t know what all the answers are, but Dr. Fauci also says that it’s not a trivial issue to be infected with this virus because we don’t know the long term effects which, by the way, sound pretty bad to me. And now, in schools that are falling apart, we’re supposed to rely on the government to support them in a pandemic? Not going to happen. As a teacher, I’m just very overwhelmed as to how this is going to play out in September. I’m disgusted and worried.
There’s nothing better than coming home at the end of a long day and facing a mountain of laundry. I assume backpacks can be sprayed with disinfectant daily Any way we look at it, going to school in a pandemic will be stressful and challenging.
I’m not concerned about any health risks associated with sending my kids to school. I am concerned about the disaster that school is going to be, though.
“I’m not concerned about any health risks associated with sending my kids to school.”
Really? Do you mean health risks to your own kids, or health risks to the community in which you live?
The main health risk of sending kids back to school are exactly the same as the main health risk of opening up all places where there are reasonably large gatherings of people. Because when the hospital system is overwhelmed the way it was in NYC in the spring, everyone is at risk.
Isn’t that obvious? That’s why almost every college is wrestling with this. Colleges desperately want to bring students back because they want the money. But they are run by people who can see the bigger picture, which is what happens once cases start increasing and the hospital systems are overwhelmed.
FWIW, Harvard and Stanford are not running all-remote classes because they are worried about students’ health. They are worried about the community around them and the impact of a quickly spreading virus.
Most parents living in NYC through late March and April were concerned about the health risks of re-opening the city — in fact, they were condemning the DOE for not closing the schools sooner. But not only because they were specifically worried about their own child getting ill with COVID-19.
Most parents were worried about what happened if they or their child got sick with anything when a hospital system was completely overwhelmed!
And the reason was not because they felt their own child was in severe danger from COVID-19. It was because everyone is in danger when the health care system is as overrun as it was last spring.
Health risks to my own kids.
FLERP!,
Right. I think many parents feel that way, but I think you probably agree that the health risk to any given student has never been how public health policy decisions are made.
Anti-vaccine parents say that they aren’t concerned about any health risks concerned with sending their unvaccinated kids to school. And many parents with vaccinated kids might agree that they don’t care if unvaccinated kids want to attend their vaccinated kids’ public school. But as a public policy question, consideration of the other people who may be more at risk is taken into account.
I agree with you that it is going to a mess, but it is going to be a mess no matter what because this country has horrible leadership and it is likely this pandemic will get worse unless a good effective vaccine is widely available.
The Senate and White House and many Governorships are still controlled by the party that refuses to recognize science or reality unless it happens to agree with whatever narrative they think will keep them in power.
(COVID-19 is nothing and a hoax until November, when COVID-19 will become so serious that all elections must be suspended, after which it is a hoax again until Trump finds a way to profit by selling the vaccine, at which time it will become very serious again.)
The school experience will be akin to a prison for students. And the rules that are taking shape guarantee shutdowns in every school. Below are some of the rules, per the NYTimes. We need to pull the plug on public schooling in NYC indefinitely. It cannot function like this.
“-If there are 1-2 cases in the same classroom, those classes will close for 2 wks, but the school likely wont
-If 2+ cases crop up in diff classes, school will close while disease detectives investigate…”
FLERP!,
I don’t understand why you think it is better in places outside of NYC? Other smaller cities haven’t made any decisions either. In Massachusetts, with arguably some of the best public schools, there are questions about what will happen.
Even private schools don’t seem to have decided yet. Do you know of any NYC private schools that have guaranteed that it will be in person without lots of conditional “if there are no changes in circumstances” clauses?
If someone offered me a bet as to whether a private school would continue in-person instruction if 2 students were diagnosed with COVID-18, I’d certainly bet that they would close, too.
It’s no different with colleges. I don’t know what the solution is, but I don’t think private schools or schools in suburbs are offering definitive plans that can be counted on either. Even if they say they are, things could change in a week.
I don’t know firsthand what the situations are like outside NYC. All I know is NYC public schools. Maybe it’s better elsewhere. Here, I think there is no solution. Fear is very high, even where the curve has been totally flattened. Any bump in new cases or deaths will reinforce that fear and grind it deeper. Parents of means will do whatever they can to give their kids the educational and social experiences they think they need. But public school is done.
Elite private schools in NYC are not opening.
That’s my understanding, too.
FLERP!,
You are right that the situation in NYC is not good, but I don’t think even billionaires can buy a good school experience for their kids during the pandemic. Barron Trump’s private school is starting online.
Maybe “public school is done”, as you believe, but then elite colleges are done, too. It is clear that the most privileged college frosh at the most elite universities are not going to have the ideal college experience, regardless of how much money their parents have and how many tens of millions their parents donated to Harvard or Princeton. At the very best, some of them can come back into dorms where interaction with other students is highly restricted, and take virtually all their classes remotely from their dorm room, and that is assuming there aren’t any outbreaks on campus, when all bets are off.
FLERP!, I don’t think there is more fear in NYC than in other places — parents all over the country are divided as to whether their schools should open fully, open a hybrid way, or do all remote. I do think that having experienced how quickly this particular pandemic can go from nothing to very serious, parents in NYC are a bit more skeptical of anyone offering easy solutions.
Ironically, I happen to think de Blasio and Carranza are trying very hard to figure out a way to safely allow for some in-person instruction for students while balancing the needs of teachers and families who don’t want to return. If not, they would simply have taken the easiest way, which some other school systems have done, and announce that school would begin as 100% remote in September.
But public and private schools all over the country are all having the same issues. I have relatives in other cities who either haven’t heard a final plan or know it will be all remote. And the wealthy suburbs with return plans often have many requirements for social distancing and mask wearing and lots of disclaimers that this is what they hope they can do.
Hey, it’s a pandemic, not a bad season for flu. No one knows how much worse it will get or if it will subside so long as we follow the advice of scientists. No one knows. Expect more deaths where people refuse to wear masks or socially distance.
Herman Cain’s last public appearance was at Trump’s rally in Tulsa. He’s dead now.
Colleges are in terrible trouble. I’m just focusing on the one thing I’m focused on, NYC public schools. I’m not saying schools in other cities or at the post-secondary level are not screwed.
Thanks for the article. I can’t imagine many teachers wanting to be part of an experiment. Parents don’t want their child to be a lab rat.
Many schools in poverty areas are falling apart but now they are supposed to have all the equipment necessary to provide a safe environment? Classes of 30 kids are supposed to magically be able to stay 6 feet apart?
I can’t imagine holding music classes and having the instruments [drums, xylophones, maracas, triangles, etc.] sanitized after each class. How are the classroom books for singing going to be sanitized? There is an end to the amount of clapping and sitting in chairs that kids can do. Overhead projectors can help but this is a huge mess.
Politicians still think of teachers as replaceable babysitters. The economy isn’t going to be working until the virus is controlled. The virus won’t be controlled until Trump and his sycophants are out of office and real leaders start making decent decisions.
Putting 30 students in a classroom sounds like spending the day in a petri dish. No plans should include such large classes. This is a non-plan that is dangerous for all.
Even with school back in person, we are still going to have to teach online using Google Classroom or another platform. This is so because teachers will have to connect with students at home if they opt for home learning. Students and teachers will get sick with colds and flu and will have to be out of school. They will need to keep up with work. A teacher could be teaching online in one classroom and have some of his/her students in another classroom. Teachers will not be able to get near students, so handing in papers and giving assignments will have to be online anyway. So, basically in person teaching will be online teaching. We will all just have more opportunity to infect each other with colds, flu and covid.
We don’t have enough computers to do both the hybrid model at school and at home. We loaned out most of our computers to kids who didn’t have them last spring, but won’t have enough for both in person and at home hybrids.
America’s schools have been systematically underfunded since 2008 while simultaneously expanding so-called choice options that also decimate funding in public education. In the richest city in the country, no student should be in a school that is falling apart and unsafe.
Maybe states should require equity plans from school district superintendents, or maybe states should have to file equity plans with the DOE, if it becomes a legitimate agency? We should make leadership accountable to show how they are moving their schools or districts toward greater equity for the poorest students. Accepting unfair deployment of resources as normal needs to end.
For some states, it’s been MUCH longer that schools have been underfunded. Utah has been grossly underfunded since the late 1980s.
This article is on the nose. And as Threatened says, the underfunding has been going on a lot longer than since 2008, and not just in Utah. There may be few other states that have cut statewide for so long, but in nearly every state, the status of pubschs is a mirror for the economy: a small group at the top thrives while the middle wilts and the bottom withers. In the upstate-NY communities w/which I am familiar, the downward spiral for local pubsch funding began in the ’70’s, as one by one the anchor light and heavy industries moved to cheaper US locations, merging/ buying out/ cannibalizing the whole way. And we know how things went in industry– & govt response– after that. Just a few salient facts tell the ed story: disappearance of vo-tech/ gradual trimming of the arts in ’70’s-’80’s; wholesale cutting of state college aid & beginning of end of scholarships in the ’80’s [as teachers salaries & all other pubsch expenditures flattened], a brief bloom for ed in ’90’s while IT plumped up Wall St– but charters nipping at heels– then NCLB, housing/ construction started caving, public ed cut to bone just in time for stdzn/ “accountability” to sink its teeth in [simultaneously charters rising to bite the back end].
P.S. We’ ve been doing something akin to equity plans in NJ since 1990. It has helped a little I think, but feels a lot like pouring $ into the ground. Even when you put 60% of state ed $ into the 24% poorest students [as we currently do], it doesn’t level the playing field, & seems a drop in the bucket. There are so many other effects of poverty.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.