What a disaster. But good news for homeschooling and charter schools I suspect.
Parents are increasingly fed up.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/390779/#respondSNIP:
My wife, who is apparently a glutton for punishment, listened to an entire Arlington County school board meeting last night. School is online only indefinitely. She reports there was great concern expressed about, and discussion of how to help: (1) the teachers, especially those who will have kids at home (the proposal was to give teachers with kids ten and younger child care, and no one else); (2) the staff, who should not be subject to any layoffs or hours reductions, even if, like extended-day staff, they have nothing to do; (3) poor kids who rely on school lunches; and (4) poor kids who have trouble accessing the internet.
Other than (4), there was essentially no discussion of educating students, which was a disaster online in the Spring, nor concern expressed for parents who can’t afford childcare, can’t afford tutors to help their kids, and who are otherwise experiencing a looming disaster with indefinite school closure.
The way at least my county school system has reacted to this crisis would have been considered outrageous ideological propaganda if a libertarian-oriented public choice scholar had predicted it. I’ve heard the same about other districts.
Christopher B •
Like that meme that showed up on FaceBook a week or so ago.
You're telling a mom who's a clerk at Kroger/Publix/Walmart/Target and been going to work for the last four months, breathing COVID air with hundreds of complete strangers, that she's going to have to continue to find somebody to watch her kids while they take on-line classes from a bunch of teachers who are too scared to go back to a classroom, and pay taxes to support the school buildings and administration on top of that, and you're claiming that Trump and Betsy Devos are trying to destroy public schools? The teacher's unions seem to be doing a good enough job already.
TTTCOTTH •
Have classes at Safeway, Costco, or Walmart. You can't get sick there.
Ann in L.A. •
The last thing these people want is to end up with huge numbers of people homeschooling or pulling their kids out of publics, but their short-sighted choices and stupidity are driving parents out. When the biggest white flight to ever hit our public schools finally becomes to big to ignore (whites disproportionately have the incomes and education to homeschool), it will be blamed on racism. In fact, it will be because schools stopped doing their $$$$$$ job!
l3randon •
My mother in law has been a teacher for almost 40 years, has been a consistent democrat for about as long, and desperately wants to go back to in-person school because of what a joke the online teaching was last spring. She is appalled that approximately 2/3 of her fellow teachers seem to have no interest in the best outcome for the kids, to the point where she is actually planning to vote R on a straight ticket. I think a surprising number of teachers are going to quietly break from the left in November.
