Posted on 08/15/2020 3:54:40 PM PDT by ransomnote
Our Nation’s children deserve the very best, and no one should be kept from reaching their full potential. If schools remain closed this fall, many children will continue to face adverse effects from school closures caused by the pandemic shutdown.
The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that just the three months of closures between March and May 2020 may reduce future potential earnings of children by 2.3 – 3.7 percent. But these adverse effects are not just limited to our children. As schools remain closed, parents often must remain home with few choices for alternative childcare. CEA calculates that 5.6 million people will be unable to return to work for childcare reasons if schools do not reopen this year.
As the pandemic-induced shutdown demonstrated, there is no one-size-fits all substitution to in-person learning. Lack of access to broadband internet, food security, engaged learning, and third-party interventions to maltreatment are all real concerns facing millions of Americans when schools are closed. While many school districts have allowed online learning, this option overwhelmingly caters to upper income households as 51 percent of parents in these households report their child received online school instruction compared to only 38 percent of parents responding the same way in lower income households.
Moreover, broadband availability varies for different demographics. As shown in figure 1, counties with a large representation of Black and Native American populations are less likely to have access to broadband, leading to an increased likelihood that their children are not receiving proper online education.
For many children, online learning is not a perfect substitute for the engaged learning children receive from being physically present in classrooms. According to tracktherecovery.org, student progress in math has slowed due to distance learning, and this is particularly exacerbated in minority and low-income groups. CEA has estimated that if remote learning is just half as effective as in-person learning, children will still face a 3.5 – 5.5 percent decrease in future projected earnings as an effect of prolonged school closures. As a result, opening schools to in-person instruction for the upcoming academic year may boost the long-term earnings prospects of students by over $1,700 per year during their working lives.
For many, schools are more than just a place of learning—particularly for low-income households and those affected by unemployment induced by the pandemic shutdown. Households with children reporting sometimes or often not having enough to eat in the past week increased 2.6 percentage points since the shutdown started in early March, increasing from 11.1 percent to 13.7 percent according to data from the Household Pulse Survey. In fact, almost 30 million children received food through the National School Lunch Program for FY2018, as research shows that participating in this program reduces regular food insufficiency. Due to the USDA’s expedient efforts to keep these programs going despite school closures, as of July 16, USDA’s Meals to You program delivered 28.5 million meals to the doorsteps of low-income children in rural America.
Schools also serve as mandatory reporters for child maltreatment. In times of economic hardship, it is not uncommon for reports of abuse to increase; however, without children receiving third-party intervention through schools, current allegations of maltreatment are significantly lower than expected. Current literature shows that in just the three months of the shutdown, there may be as many as 212,500 cases of unreported child abuse allegations.
The adverse effects of school closures are not just limited to our Nation’s children. With kids at home, parents must figure out alternatives to childcare. For many, this means remaining at home as well, despite the fact that only about 30 percent of those in the workforce are able to telework. Moreover, whereas 45 percent of married men with children are able to telework, this number falls to 42 percent for married women, and to an abysmal 21 percent for single women.
Collective earning losses of the estimated 5.6 million American parents who are unable to work due to school closures are on the magnitude of nearly $232 billion. This lost job experience is likely to lead to a persistent 1 percent drop in lifetime earnings. If schools were to reopen, this could save parents from losing $1,100 per year over the course of their working lives while disproportionately helping early-career single mothers and over 5 million people in the healthcare sector with a child under 6 years old.
The science has shown that children are at low risk for COVID-19, as only 0.1 percent of deaths have occurred in people under 24. Moreover, the median age of a public school teacher in the United States is just 41, with roughly 70 percent of all teachers under the age of 50, which accounts for less than 8 percent of all COVID deaths. Research by Courtemanche et al. (2020) find that school closures had little effect on the spread of COVID-19, while a study by Lee and Raszka (2020) found that between 92 and 96 percent of children who became infected got it from members of their own household rather than another child.
While we must be prudent to protect those most vulnerable, we must also be mindful of the prolonged effects that school closures will have on millions of children and parents.
Not as long as the union is calling the shots.
Teachers do not want to go back.
See the sick-out in AZ.
NBC “News” tonight:
1. COVID bad in kids
2. Trump mean to Post Office
3. Trump mean to Comma,La
4. George Floyd story (yes, he’s been dead nearly 3 months)
The Dems never let an opportunity go to waste.
The GOP always misses the opportunity.
We have an opportunity here:
An opportunity to take power away from the public school monopoly.
An opportunity to promote private schools and homeschooling.
And what are Republicans doing? They’re screaming to open the public schools again.
You get what you ask for, people.
Unlocking publik skoolz is the farthest thing from helping any child who we care about.
Look at Montgomery County, MD. They tried to keep private schools closed. But Governor Hogan ordered the county to allow private schools reopen.
Give parents the voucher for private schools, it would greatly aid children in struggling schools and create actual incentive for administrators to manage schools properly.
Well here in central NH the School Board has jersey the residents around for the past 2 months on this school opening.
First it was back to class, then about 2 weeks ago they said we were going to a Hybrid model of 2 days in class and 3 days “distance learning” which is no-learning.
Now just less than 2 weeks before school starts it is now Distance Learning (No Learning).
Leaving us no time to look for alternatives.
Private schools are filled up and at $12K are not and option for virtually all.
My 5/6 year old daughter will be robbed of another year of schooling.
Infuriated at NEA to a point I can not write on this site.
Nonsense.
All schools do is stifle curiosity and dumb kids down to the lowest common denominator.
If you want the best for your kids, homeschool them.
People with kids are scared to death to send there kids to school...You can thank the news...they have no clue that there kids will not die....
The only ones where I live who know the truth are the nurses that live near me...
They have been taking
hydroychloroquin
And masks are a waste of time unless your a medical person...
My wife taught at Air Academy schools in Colorado Springs 1980 to 2000
She made learning fun and her kids could read and do math...
you can teach a lot of math to first and second graders with a watermelon
School here in Florida..they teach respect for veterans and police and the grade school does a great program around Veterans Day
For a much lower price, you can pick up books for your child to use at home. Then you can teach her at her own pace on your family's schedule (instead of following orders from a school). You'll be amazed at how easy and inexpensive homeschooling is.
Good for Gov. Hogan. Unfortunately, at the national level, Republicans are pushing to reopen public schools.
We can not home school our daughter.
I work full time, my wife part time and my wife is from Cambodia where school is virtually non existent for girls when she was young, they were just trying to keep alive running from the Kahmer Rouge then the Vietnamese and find food to eat.
She needs to be with other kids in front of a teacher. All the private schools around southern central and south east NH are having in-class 5 days a week learning ... but not the public.
We are looking at finances now and see if we can qualify for financial aid, but the private schools filled up fast this summer with new students and slots are virtually non-existent around here.
The right books make everything easy, taking the child through each lesson step by step. Also, online and software programs can help.
The choice is yours, but, if you can’t qualify for financial aid and if all else fails... well, there’s another option.
Reopening schools is key to finishing the neo-marxist indoctrination of our children.
The administration knows that parents want the “free” daycare back, period.
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