Archives for the month of: August, 2020
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Dr. Birx: To Open Schools or Not?

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2020 //
29

For months, Dr. Deborah Birx has stood loyally by Trump as he painted an optimistic picture of the pandemic. She sat silently on the podium at the White House briefing when he recommended that people inject or ingest disinfectant. Surely she knew that was absurd. Several days ago, the New York Times noted that Dr. Birx had become a favorite of Trump because she did not contradict him as Dr. Fauci occasionally does. Then Rep.Nancy Pelosi criticized Birx. Then Birx stated publicly that the virus was getting worse, not better. And then Trump got angry at her.

James Hohmann writes about Dr. Birx in the political maelstrom in the Washington Post:

Deborah Birx was at a vacation home in Delaware when White House communications staffers called to say they needed to put her on the Sunday shows. Ever the good soldier, the coordinator of President Trump’s coronavirus task force appeared remotely on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Asked whether schools should fully reopen, Birx answered: “If you have high caseload and active community spread … we are asking people to distance learn at this moment, so we can get this epidemic under control.”


Administration officials say Birx has been arguing this privately, citing recent studies to make her case, but saying so publicly was one of the factors that put her crosswise with Trump. The president responded to the interview by calling her “pathetic!” in a tweet on Monday morning and continued his aggressive push to fully reopen schools during an afternoon news conference, disregarding warnings against doing so from a chorus of public health experts while ignoring mounting evidence that this could lead to potentially deadly outbreaks.


Trump closed out the day by reiterating his view on Twitter at 11:22 p.m., August 3:




“OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!”

Now that August has arrived, bringing the start of a new academic year for some districts, the clash over whether to reopen schools for in-person learning has arguably transcended the debate over mask mandates to become the biggest flashpoint in the ongoing culture war over how to respond to this novel coronavirus. Trump believes getting kids back in classrooms is essential to revving up the economy before the election so that parents can return to work, but many of the president’s own advisers fear that doing so too soon will be counterproductive if new infections continue to spike.


These fights are playing out far beyond Washington, in communities and even countries across the globe.


Protesters in at least three dozen school districts across the country, from New York and Philadelphia in the East to Los Angeles in the West, took to the streets on Monday in demonstrations backed by teachers’ unions to demand that science drive decisions about when and how to resume in-person learning. “In Milwaukee, the Teachers’ Education Association tweeted pictures of protesters making fake gravestones that said, for example, ‘RIP GRANDMA CAUGHT COVID HELPING GRANDKIDS WITH HOMEWORK,’” Valerie Strauss reports. “In Baltimore, teachers and students and others protested outside a Comcast building to demand the company provide improved Internet service for students…


“Still, some districts have already begun the 2020-21 academic year by reopening school buildings, and already covid-19 cases have been reported in some of them. In Georgia’s Gwinnett County, some 260 employees tested positive or had possibly been exposed to the coronavirus a day after teachers returned to work last week and were told to stay home. Alcoa City Schools in Tennessee recently opened but a few days later, a student tested positive for the virus. At Corinth High School in Mississippi, in-person classes started last week and within days, three students tested positive for the coronavirus and others went into quarantine as a result of contact tracing.”

Maryland’s governor and leaders of the state’s largest jurisdiction clashed Monday over whether private schools should be able to bring students back on campus for in-person learning,” Donna St. George, Erin Cox and Hannah Natanson report. “Three days after Montgomery County’s top public health official said that private and parochial schools would have to stick to online teaching until at least Oct. 1, Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday sought to invalidate the county directive. … Hogan (R) said school systems and private schools should have sole authority to determine when and how to safely reopen; local health officials may shut down schools only on a case-by-case basis for health reasons. …


“Private schools have explored options including hybrid approaches that combine distance education with in-person learning. Many schools were still finalizing plans, but many families expected some degree of on-campus instruction in the fall. … Private schools affected by the Montgomery County directive and governor’s order include St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, the private school in Potomac attended by Barron Trump, the president’s youngest child. Parents of Montgomery County private school students filed a federal lawsuit Monday asking a judge to overturn the county health director’s order, which attorney Tim Maloney said still stands and could be enforced unless the county rescinds it — or a court invalidates it.”


In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has said schools must reopen in some capacity two weeks from now. But the head of public instruction for the state, an elected position, said in a statement on Monday that in-person learning is still unsafe. “Every indicator shows that there is high community spread across the state,” said Superintendent Kathy Hoffman. “As school leaders, we should prepare our families and teachers for the reality that it is unlikely that any school community will be able to reopen safely for traditional in-person or hybrid instruction by August 17th. Our state is simply not ready to have all our students and educators congregate in school facilities.”


Jeff Gregorich, superintendent of schools at Hayden Winkelman Unified School District in Arizona, was blunter. “There’s no way it can be safe,” he told Eli Saslow. “If you think anything else, I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy. Kids will get sick, or worse. Family members will die. Teachers will die.”


College students who have come back to campus are testing positive. The Northwestern University football team paused its preseason workouts in Evanston, Ill., after someone involved tested positive. “NU is the sixth Big Ten program to pause its preseason workouts at some point this summer, following Indiana, Ohio State, Rutgers, Maryland and Michigan State,” per the Daily Northwestern.
V

irginia Tech cornerback Caleb Farley, a top NFL draft prospect, opted out of the upcoming season and accused his school of being lax in its coronavirus-related protocols. Out West, the Big 12 announced Monday night that its football teams will play a 10-game schedule this fall with one nonconference home matchup. Down South, the University of Texas at Austin sent an email to all students saying that all parties, whether on or off campus, will be banned when they are scheduled to come back in three weeks.


The United Nations said in a 26-page report issued this morning that as many as 100 countries have not yet announced a date for schools to reopen. The report says over 1 billion students are impacted, and at least 40 million children worldwide have missed out on education “in their critical preschool year.” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video address accompanying the report that this poses the threat of “a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.”


“We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people,” Guterres said. “The decisions that governments and partners take now will have lasting impact on hundreds of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come.”


“UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini told reporters the Paris-based agency plans to hold a high-level virtual meeting in the fall, likely during the second half of October, to secure commitments from world leaders and the international community to place education at the forefront of recovery agendas from the pandemic,” the AP reports. “There may be economic trade-offs, but the longer schools remain closed the more devastating the impact, especially on the poorest and most vulnerable children,” she said.


A study published on Monday by The Lancet warns that Britain could be hit by a severe second wave of the coronavirus this winter — double the size of the initial outbreak — if the country’s test and trace system does not improve substantially before schools reopen in September. Researchers at University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used computer models and a range of scenarios to determine the impact reopening schools on a full-time or part-time basis would have on public health, per Jennifer Hassan.




Trump said Birx offered a gloomy assessment of the coronavirus situation to save face after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) criticized her for carrying water for the president. “In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us,” Trump tweeted. “Pathetic!”


“Birx finds herself isolated with increasingly few allies even as she remains responsible for overseeing the nation’s response to a cataclysmic crisis,” Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb report. “Trump has grown exhausted by the dismal coronavirus news and just wants the issue to be behind him. … In recent weeks, her time in the Oval Office has dropped, officials said, and she is not always part of decision-making meetings led by Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. … Within the administration, several current and former senior officials described Birx as a politically shrewd power player … But some of these same officials also noted that Birx has made enemies within the White House, in part because a growing number of aides believe she takes different positions with different people and because of sharp attacks on some colleagues.”


Meanwhile, Birx’s reputation has taken a hit in the public health world where she has spent her career because she is perceived as too much of a cheerleader for the administration’s response. “He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data,” Birx told the Christian Broadcasting Network in late March. “At the time, Trump was pushing the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, an unproven medical treatment for the coronavirus, and was arguing in favor of reopening the country by Easter despite surging cases across the country,” per Ashley, Josh and Yasmeen. “Another controversial moment came when Birx defended Georgia’s reopening in April, which included tattoo parlors and hair salons, where people cannot be socially distant from each other. Public health officials were also dismayed at reports that Birx was questioning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s official coronavirus death count as too high, when nearly all experts believe it is probably too low.”


Trump met with Birx on Monday afternoon. During his news conference, he walked back his harsh morning attacks. Trump said he has “a lot of respect” for Birx. Then the president attacked Pelosi for treating her “very, very badly

Categories Health, Science, Trump

Ashley McCall: What If We Radically Reimagined School?

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2020 //
57

Ashley McCall is a bilingual third-grade teacher of English Language Arts in Chicago Public Schools. She asked in a recent post on her blog whether we might seize this opportunity to reimagine schooling for the future, to break free of a stale and oppressive status quo that stifles both children and teachers.

She writes:

“What if?” I thought. What if we did something different, on purpose? What if we refused to return to normal? Every week seems to introduce a new biblical plague and unsurprisingly, the nation is turning to schools to band-aid the situation and create a sense of “normalcy”–the same normalcy that has failed BIPOC communities for decades.

In her memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist, Patrisse Khan-Cullors states that “our nation [is] one big damn Survivor reality nightmare”. It always has been. America’s criminal navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic further highlights the ways we devalue the lives of the most vulnerable. We all deserve better than Survivor and I don’t want to help sustain this nightmare. I want to be a part of something better.

What If We Designed a School Year for Recovery?

“What if?” I thought. What if Chicago Public Schools (CPS) did something radical with this school year? What if this fastest-improving urban district courageously liberated itself from narrow and rigid quantitative measures of intelligence that have colonized the education space for generations, and instead blazed a trail for reimagining what qualifies as valuable knowledge?

What if we put our money, time and energy into what we say matters most? What if this school year celebrated imagination? In We Got This, Cornelius Minor reminds us that “education should function to change outcomes for whole communities.” What if we designed a school year that sought to radically shift how communities imagine, problem solve, heal, and connect?

What if this messy school year prioritized hard truths and accountability? What if social emotional instruction wasn’t optional or reduced to one cute poster? What if we focused on district wide capacity-building for, and facilitation of, restorative justice practices?

What if the CPS Office of Social Emotional Learning (OSEL) had more than about 15 restorative practice coaches to serve over 600 schools? What if we let students name conflicts and give them the space, tools, and support to address and resolve them? What if restorative justice was a central part of this year’s curricula?

What If We Really Listened?

What if we made space to acknowledge the fear, anxiety, frustration and confusion students, staff, and families are feeling? What if we listened? What if we made space to acknowledge the anger and demands of students? What if our priority was healing? Individual and collective. What if we respected and honored the work of healers and invested in healing justice?

What if our rising 8th-graders and seniors prepared for high school and post-secondary experiences by centering their humanity and the humanity of others? What if healthy, holistic, interconnected citizenship was a learning objective? What if we tracked executive functioning skills and habits of mind? What if for “homework” families had healing conversations?

What If We Made Life the Curriculum?

What if we recognized that life—our day-to-day circumstances and our response to them—is curricula? It’s the curricula students need, especially now as our country reckons with its identity. What if we remembered that reading, writing, social studies, mathematics, and science are built into our understanding of and response to events every day?

She goes on to describe how this reimagining could infuse the school and the curriculum and the way teachers teach.

School reformers and billionaire philanthropists say they want innovation. Do you think Bill Gates, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, and their friends would fund districts that want genuine innovation of the kind Ashley McCall describes?

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Creativity, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Innovation, Philanthropy, Walton Foundation

Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
9

This news just in from the Education Law Center about resistance to vouchers in Tennessee. Vouchers are a huge waste of public money. Studies in recent years have converged on the conclusion that students who use vouchers fall behind their peers who remain in public school. Meanwhile, the public schools lose money that is diverted to subpar voucher schools. Why do politicians like Governor Lee of Tennessee want to spend public dollars on low-quality religious schools?

Here is a press release from the Education Law Center:

The plaintiffs in McEwen v. Lee, a case challenging Tennessee’s unconstitutional Education Savings Account voucher law passed in 2019, have filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in an appeal of a companion challenge to the law.

In Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County v. Tennessee Department of Education, Shelby and Davidson Counties – the two counties targeted by the voucher law – obtained an injunction blocking the voucher program while the case is on appeal. Because the law applies only to students in those counties, the Davidson County Chancery Court ruled that it violates the state constitution’s Home Rule provision, which prohibits the state legislature from passing laws targeting specific counties without local approval. The case is now before the Tennessee Court of Appeals, with oral argument scheduled for August 5.

The McEwen lawsuit, brought by public school parents and community members in Nashville and Memphis, is on hold pending the appeal in Metro Government. The McEwen plaintiffs have filed an amicus brief in support of the Metro Government plaintiffs to emphasize several key points.

First, the McEwen plaintiffs’ brief affirms that the plaintiffs in both cases have standing to challenge the voucher statute, meaning they are legally entitled to file their lawsuits. Second, the brief explains that the State of Tennessee has a constitutional duty to fund public schools but has no such duty to fund private schools. The brief also explains that because the voucher program would be funded with taxpayer dollars intended for Metro Nashville Public Schools and Shelby County Schools, it would severely harm those counties’ ability to maintain adequately funded public schools.

Finally, the McEwen plaintiffs’ amicus brief responds to several amicus briefs filed by voucher proponents in support of the State of Tennessee’s position. These briefs assert that voucher programs benefit students and public schools. In response, In response, the McEwen plaintiffs demonstrate how the history of private school vouchers is steeped in efforts to preserve racial segregation, and voucher programs continue to exacerbate school segregation. Research also shows that vouchers fail to improve students’ academic outcomes and drain money from already underfunded public schools, harming students and communities.

The McEwen plaintiffs are represented by Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which collaborate on the Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS) campaign to ensure public education funds are used exclusively to maintain, support and strengthen public schools. The plaintiffs are also represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and represented pro bono by the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP.

The Court of Appeals will hear oral argument in the Metro Government case on August 5 at 1 p.m. CT. A livestream will be accessible here, and a video recording will be available here.

Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director

Education Law Center
60 Park Place, Suite 300
Newark, NJ 07102
973-624-1815, ext. 24
skrengel@edlawcenter.org

Categories Tennessee, Vouchers

Arthur Camins: Beware the “Me-First” Pandemic

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
132

Arthur Camins, retired science educator, warns that the coronavirus pandemic is rivaled by an equally harmful pandemic of selfishness.

He begins:

Deadly as it is, the uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 in the United States is but a part of a broader, more devastating phenomenon: the be-out-for-yourself-pandemic. The readily available antidote is organizing for mutual benefit, but that medicine has been intentionally kept off the public market. Now, people are marching for it in the streets.

The virus lurked in our culture in partial dormancy at least since defeat of resistance to New Deal legislation. It reemerged in plain sight with the election of Ronald Reagan, the rise of ultra-conservative think tanks and foundations, and Republican dominance in local and state government. Be-out-for-yourselfism reached pandemic proportions with Trump’s victory. It has perniciously infected much of our daily lives, reeking death and destruction in its path. We are suffering from rampant selfishness sepsis. The pathogen spreads by promulgation of a three-pronged anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation ideology. Racism is its nourishment.

He goes on to explain why this ideology undermines our ability to react wisely to the coronavirus, which requires cooperation and common purpose.

Categories Character, Citizenship, Health

John Merrow: Why Does the Press Go Easy on Trump?

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
28

John Merrow thinks the White House press corps has failed to ask Trump tough questions. This was true during the 2016 campaign, he says, and its true now.

The recent Chris Wallace interview on FOX was a rare exception. Wallace has facts to challenge Trump’s lies.

But typically he ignores questions and answers questions that no one asks.

He always plays the victim, and a docile press lets him get away with it.

Categories Lies, Media, Trump

Peter Greene: How Charters in Pennsylvania Monetize Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
6

Peter Greene describes in this post how charter schools in Pennsylvania manage to game the system by making money from students with disabilities even while excluding many of them.

He writes:

In a new report, Education Voters of Pennsylvania looks at “how an outdated law wastes public money, encourages gaming the system, and limits school choice.” Fixing the Flaws looks at how Pennsylvania’s two separate funding systems have made students with special needs a tool for charter gaming of the system, even as some of them are shut out of the system entirely.
The two-headed system looks like this. Public schools receive special education funding based on the actual costs of services, while charter schools are funded with a one-size-fits-all system that pays the same amount for all students with special needs, no matter what those special needs might be….

Public schools receive state funding based on student tiers; charters get the same funding whether the student needs an hour of speech therapy a week or a separate classroom, teacher and aide.

This creates an obvious financial incentive for charter schools to cherry pick students who are considered special needs, but who need no costly adaptations or staffing to meet those needs, while at the same time incentivizing charters to avoid the more costly high needs students. Denial of those students does not require outright rejection of the students; charters can simply say, “You are welcome to enroll, but we do not provide any of the specialized programs that you want for your child.” Parents will simply walk away.

Examples of this technique are not hard to find in the state. Before they closed down in 2018, the Wonderland Charter School in State Collegel was caught over-identifying students with speech and language impairment, a low-cost Tier 1 need, by 1,000%….

Across the state, the report finds roughly 10% of public school enrollment is students with special needs; for charters, the percentage across the state is about half that.
The result is that taxpayers, through their local districts, are overpaying charters for the services provided. If a student with a language impairment moves to a charter, the funding doesn’t just follow her—it increases by thousands of dollars. A student who cost the taxpayers $15,000 to educate in a public school now costs taxpayers $27,000, though no more money is being actually spent on that student’s education.

The problem could easily be fixed, and Peter explains how.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pennsylvania, Special Education

Steve Nelson: Not Wearing a Mask Is Stupid

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
34

Since the pandemic began, public health experts have told us to wear a mask when interacting with others, keep a social distance from others, avoid crowds, and wash your hands frequently. The purpose is to protect yourself and others and to stop the spread of the disease.

The evidence shows that it works. New York City and New York State went from worst in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, then adopted and enforced stringent rules, and flattened the curve. Other nations had explosive outbreaks—think Spain and Italy—established strict rules and flattened the curve.

The U.S. went the other way and infections are rising. Some people resist wearing a mask, claiming it infringes on their personal rights.

Steve Nelson (borrowing his rhyme pattern from Dr. Seuss) wrote this poem about those who refuse to protect themselves and others:


School choice as a civil rights matter is oddly analogous to “not wearing a mask” as a civil rights issue. Selfishness over collective responsibility. With apologies to Damn Poet:

I will not wear a stupid mask.
I will not wear one – please don’t ask.

I do not like them day or night,
I will not wear one – that’s my right.
I do not like them loose or tight,
I will not wear one, I’ll stand and fight.

I will not wear one in the park,
I will not wear one in the dark,
I will not wear one on a lark,

I will not wear a stupid mask,
I will not wear one, please don’t ask.

I do not care if you’re displeased
I do not care if you’re diseased.
I do not care who coughed or sneezed,
I will not have my freedom seized.

I will not wear a stupid mask,
I will not wear one, please don’t ask.

I will not wear one in the store,
I will not wear one out the door,
I will not wear one, you’re a bore,
I will not listen anymore.
I will not wear a stupid mask,
I will not wear one, please don’t ask.

I will not wear one day or night,
I will not wear one loose or tight,
I will not wear one in the park,
I will not wear one in the dark,
I will not wear one on a lark,
I will not wear one in the store,
I will not wear one out the door.
I will not wear one, evermore.

I will not wear a stupid mask,
I will not wear one, please don’t ask.

Actually Dr. Seuss would want you to wear one!

I guess I really should be masked,
On second thought, I’m glad you asked.

Categories Humor

Is the Demand to Reopen Schools Really a Plot to Dismantle Them?

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2020 //
9

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.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization

Glen Brown: The Retired Teacher’s Concerns

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2020 //
72

Glen Brown taught for many years in Illinois public schools.

This Retired Teacher’s Concerns

This is a letter to retired teachers who knowingly disregard the current crisis that teachers confront this fall and most likely next spring because of the dangerous Covid-19 pandemic.

Let me begin by asking them a few questions:

Where is your concern for current teachers (who, by the way, are funding your pension)? Have you forgotten or lost your love and respect for what teachers do each day? Is it because of your callous self-absorption or self-regard, or is it your indolence and complicity that make you uninterested, disinterested or indifferent?

I want to know where is your protest against the dangers of reopening schools in a pandemic? Where is your outrage? Where is your moral courage? Where is your sensibility and compassion? Where is your sense of community and sense of duty? Where is your responsibility and solidarity with today’s teachers?

I want to believe it is not because you are just too damn busy enjoying your retirement to care about the prevailing and serious quandary that current teachers contend with right now.

Of course, I presume many of you could have health issues, vulnerabilities, or other responsibilities; nevertheless, many working teachers have medical problems, susceptibilities, and other obligations as well.

Now, imagine you are a teacher today.

You are afraid that you cannot teach effectively because you are afraid: You are afraid of contracting the coronavirus and infecting your family and others. You are afraid of your students contracting the coronavirus and infecting their families. You are afraid for students who ride buses and for bus drivers who bring them to school and home each day.

You are afraid that frequent hand-washing is impossible for students to do throughout the entire day. You are afraid there is not enough space in your classroom for proper distancing. You are afraid social distancing and wearing cloth masks for hours is impossible for students. You are afraid of students eating lunches without masks, passing in hallways, and congregating in bathrooms or by their lockers. You are afraid your students cannot safely “socialize” in a pandemic despite the irrational push to send them to school. You are afraid some parents will undermine your safety concerns (“This pandemic is a political hoax”).

You are afraid of airborne transmission of the coronavirus that thrives indoors, especially in closed spaces. You are afraid the windows cannot be opened or will not be opened in inclement weather. You are afraid your school’s ventilation system is antiquated or poor (where “air is not properly filtered, diluted and exchanged”); that the HVAC system has not been upgraded and will easily spread the coronavirus. You are afraid that every surface in your school will not be sanitized every day.

You are afraid your school will have insufficient Personal Protective Equipment to keep everyone healthy and safe, such as portable HEPA air purifiers for each room, N-95 masks, Nitrile gloves, face shields, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizers…

You are afraid you will not be able to tell the difference between the symptoms of the coronavirus and the flu, or the difference between the coronavirus and the common cold, or the difference between the coronavirus and common allergies. You are afraid of asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus.

You are afraid your school cannot guarantee everyone’s health and safety through reliable and consistent testing and contact tracing. You are afraid administrators and the school board lack the expertise to determine health and safety measures for students, teachers and staff.

You are afraid of airborne transmission of the coronavirus that thrives indoors, especially in closed spaces. You are afraid the windows cannot be opened or will not be opened in inclement weather. You are afraid your school’s ventilation system is antiquated or poor (where “air is not properly filtered, diluted and exchanged”); that the HVAC system has not been upgraded and will easily spread the coronavirus. You are afraid that every surface in your school will not be sanitized every day.

You are afraid your school will have insufficient Personal Protective Equipment to keep everyone healthy and safe, such as portable HEPA air purifiers for each room, N-95 masks, Nitrile gloves, face shields, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizers…

You are afraid you will not be able to tell the difference between the symptoms of the coronavirus and the flu, or the difference between the coronavirus and the common cold, or the difference between the coronavirus and common allergies. You are afraid of asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus.

You are afraid your school cannot guarantee everyone’s health and safety through reliable and consistent testing and contact tracing. You are afraid administrators and the school board lack the expertise to determine health and safety measures for students, teachers and staff.

You are afraid of the blatant incompetence of some of your administrators, the risky agenda of the school board, and the selfish priorities of many parents in your school district. You are afraid for your students’ lives. You are afraid of dying needlessly for the U.S economy.

You would be afraid too.

Until this country has a unified and coherent federal, state and local strategy; until the federal government increases its funding for school health and safety for all schools across this nation; until there is federal funding for parents to assist with their at-home childcare and technology and federal funding to feed disadvantaged children; until business entrepreneurs and the Trump administration (and not the schools!) solve the false choice they have created for parents of school-age children—all schools across this nation should open only on online this fall and not until this pandemic is totally under control!

Furthermore, until the morons among us stop spreading misinformation and conspiracies because of their own gullibility and ignorance; until the Creons among us cease their stubbornness and spitefulness; until the pathological narcissists among us end their gas-lighting, this unabated coronavirus will continue to proliferate, and thousands of Americans will die.

-Glen Brown

Retired Teacher

Categories Education Reform, Health, Teachers

NY Times Magazine: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against COVID-19

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2020 //
10

The New York Times declared that its coverage of the pandemic would not be locked behind a paywall, so I’m assuming this article is available for free use.

It focuses on the fight to contain the virus in Harris County (Houston). One obstacle is the defunding of public health services in this country, which left us unprepared for the pandemic. Another obstacle is the actions of politicians who follow Trump’s lead and minimize the danger to the public. A third obstacle is the stubborn refusal of a large minority who insist on their “right” to do what they want without regard to the community.

This combination has crippled the nation’s response to the pandemic and will cost many thousands of lives.

Categories Health, Houston, Science, Stupid, Texas, Trump
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