Floridians, and everyone else, want to know the answer to this question. Some believe that keeping schools open during a pandemic will destroy them; some fear that opening them during a pandemic will destroy them. Take your pick.
Thanks to Peter Greene, I discovered a Florida blog called Accountabaloney, written by two savvy Floridians who are fed-up with their state’s absurd education policies. Sue and Suzette, welcome!
They write here about a podcast by Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, questioning whether Betsy DeVos’s newfound enthusiasm for opening real public schools is another front in her war to destroy them.
Listening to the “In the Weeds” podcast, they realized that another con was happening:
Some will read the title and dismiss it as a conspiracy theory. That is exactly what we used to hear if we equated “ed reform” with privatization five or so years ago, when the education reformers were still hiding their desire to privatize public education. In Florida, they now make few attempts to conceal their mission. We hope you will read this summary, subscribe at Patreon, listen to the entire “In the Weeds” segment, and draw your own conclusions. Will the Covid pandemic be used fundamentally alter public education in Florida?…
Keep in mind, the Commissioner Corcoran is a strong proponent of “school choice” and privatization, pushing as both a legislator and as the commissioner for the expansion of charter schools and private school voucher programs. Shortly after he was appointed as commissioner, he was reported saying his goal was to move 2/3rd of Florida’s 2.7 million public school students into private options, envisioning a system where most students attended charter and private schools.
After calling for the campus closures of Florida’s public schools in response to the pandemic in March, at the April 1st State Board of Education meeting, Commissioner Corcoran praised Florida Virtual School (FLVS) for re-allocating $4.3 million of its reserve funding to purchase the servers necessary to expand its capacity be capable of serving the entire Florida student population (2.72 million). He suggested that, should the closures remain necessary, FLVS could serve the entire state’s virtual needs…
Shortly after his inauguration, Governor Ron DeSantis redefined public education saying “if it’s public dollars, it’s public education,” an idea celebrated by DeVos.
I’m so glad to read this post. Florida is very likely the worst, most corrupt state in the nation when it comes to education policy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good faith should not be assumed with any DeVos decision.
School should be entirely remote until a vaccine that is 100% effective and safe is distributed to everyone. Even in areas like NYC, where the virus’s curve has been completely flattened (only a handful of deaths each day in a city of 8 million), teachers are very afraid of working in schools as long as new infections are happening, and it appears a lot of parents are, too. It will be very rough on my family and my kids to lose a year of school, but I would rather do that than put my kids through the prophylactic conditions that schools will be required to operate under, as it will create a prison-like atmosphere that makes school a terrible experience for everyone. The most vulnerable students will be hurt even more, but it is what it is, unfortunately.
I do hope that schools learn from this year and get much better at using remote technology, and we learn where to make new, big technology investments. There is a non-trivial chance that Covid is still around a year from now. Even if it isn’t, other dangerous viruses may emerge, and given our experience with Covid, they’ll be met with demands for immediate shutdowns. We need to be able make remote learning much better to deal with those scenarios.
FLERP,
I am aware that the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on you and your family, as it has of millions of others. My son with school age children is eager for school to resume. But I think your somewhat pessimistic assessment is right. COVID is not the common cold. It takes a deadly toll and it spreads fast. As schools reopen, many will be forced to close because of outbreaks. Those that remain open will do so under circumstances that are expensive, burdensome, and very distracting. Many teachers will retire rather than risk their lives. Many parents will keep their children home. I think we need to face this reality and bear a prolonged period of “remote learning” while rd ognizing the strain on children, families and teachers. I wish there were a fast way to end this nightmare but it won’t end without determined national leadership, which can’t happen so long as Trump remains a denialist who shuffles off any responsibility to heal the nation.
I don’t know if this article is hopeful or pessimistic, but it does gel with my sense that this virus is not going to go away. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/coronavirus-will-never-go-away/614860/
and the pandemic has so clearly exposed how the tech divide is growing: schools should be on the front lines of doing all they can to expose this divide and help it shrink
It is no secret that Donald Trump was raised by a narcissist/psychopath, and Don the Con has been one most if not all of his life.
Malignant Narcissists and Psychopathic President Donald Trump does not care how many die to help him achieve his goals in November 2020 and become president of the United States for life. Trump would willingly sacrifice millions of Americans to win.
Betsy [the Beast] DeVos is also apparently a malignant narcissist and psychopath, too. She does not care how many children and adults are sacrificed to the virus to achieve her goals to destroy the public school system in the U.S.
I got this rather odd tweet in my mentions yesterday:
In short order, I got piled on by people demanding “their” money back because teachers weren’t doing their jobs during covid shutdowns and others blaming teachers because their child’s IEP’s aren’t followed. Much was contradictory and the choice of language somewhat odd, as if English grammar and vocabulary were not the writers’ first language.
And then there was the bizarre article from The Atlantic (which a reader suggested should be considered through the lens of marital strife!).
https://t.co/fq09UyWHFx?amp=1
There was this terrific response, though the author seems to have mispelled the name of the authour to whom she was responding.
https://t.co/O29Ka5YObj?amp=1
It all feels quite orchestrated.
Reminds me of sharks when they sense blood in the water. And while the sharks may not know why their next meal is bleeding, they are circling in for the kill. And after fifteen years of studying the conditions causing the bleeding, a possible name for it just came to mind.
Listen to Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings talk about a new possibility during COVID.
https://talk927fm.com/podcast/8-4-20-busted-pencils/