I’m in material agreement with the editors of the New York Times on this one. Schools need to reopen in the fall:
American children need public schools to reopen in the fall. Reading, writing and arithmetic are not even the half of it. Kids need to learn to compete and to cooperate. They need food and friendships; books and basketball courts; time away from family and a safe place to spend it.
Parents need public schools, too. They need help raising their children, and they need to work.
As I’ve pointed out before the big issue in reopening the schools won’t be children or parents. It will be faculty and staff. In New York State, for example, the median age for a teacher is 42.5 and nearly 30% are 50 or older.
There are major challenges:
The School Superintendents Association estimates that necessary protective measures would cost about $1.8 million for an average district of eight schools and 3,500 students. With more than 13,000 school districts in the United States, the total adds up.
In the United States the primary responsibility for schools belongs to the states. Here in Illinois that’s even in the state constitution. From Article X, Section 1:
A fundamental goal of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities.
The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. There may be such other free education as the General Assembly provides by law.
The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education.
That hasn’t stopped the State of Illinois from being one of the lowest or the lowest in terms of the state’s contribution to education. In Illinois much of the expense falls on local districts which accounts at least in part for the enormous disparity in spending and outcomes among districts.
The editors’ notion, that the federal government should pick up the tab, is nonsense. It’s clearly a state responsibility.
The states will need to find ways to accommodate the new circumstances including a diversity of solutions and pay for the changes necessary. For some students “virtual education” is a fine solution. For some home schooling is the best alternative. For most there is no alternative to in-person education.
There will need to be a readjusting of priorities and those will be politically difficult. The federal government should emphatically not be in the business of sparing local politicians from making difficult choices.
My prediction is support for public education will go into precipitous free fall if schools don’t reopen.
If education is reduced to zoom sessions; where parents have to invest significant time during the school day; why not go all the way and homeschool? Then parents get to tailor the curriculum, schedules to meet family desires. It would also call into question all the property taxes to pay for physical infrastructure that is not used.
Put me down for opening up on time and closing in a month due to spike in teachers infected.
Not what I want to see. But that’s what I see.
Masks won’t work for several reasons. Muffling and compliance. You can’t reduce class size due to staff shortage.
So you give it a try and if it causes too much spread you pump the brakes on that and switch over to this.
School outcomes depend on the genetics of the students. Above some low threshold spending is irrelevant.
FWIW – KIPS in DC planning to open live. No word yet on class size etc
Didnt schools open in S Korea? The problem we will have is that the infection rate is so high. Current recommendations require a 14 day quarantine if you have a high risk exposure. Going to be hard to keep enough teachers in school. The younger teachers may not die but if they keep disappearing for 5 day hospitalizations and then a couple weeks to recover it will make staffing more difficult.
It will be impossible for teachers to not have close physical contact with the younger students. Maybe schools can hire younger people as aids to help. However close contact among the teachers themselves will be hard to avoid. Having been inside the lunch and lounge rooms for teachers at a lot of schools they can be pretty crowded. Ventilation not the best.
Steve
South Korea, Israel, and Hong Kong (twice) have reopened and shut schools due to COVID.
It is a wicked problem with no easy solution.