The Tragedy of the Schools: Many parents are losing faith in their closed public schools

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 3, 2021 | Daniel Henninger

[karpov]

Among its multiple alterations, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21 may be undermining the role of public schools in the United States, in place since the middle of the 19th century. It is a reassessment that is long overdue.

A relevant anecdote is Ronald Reagan’s famous explanation that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him. Across the country the past year, that has been the experience of parents with children in many of the nation’s public systems—abandoned by schools they’ve supported with their tax dollars.

In Chicago, the nation’s third-largest system is on the brink of a strike, despite pleas from the city’s progressive mayor, Lori Lightfoot, for the teachers to return. Unions are resisting opening in Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Washington. Michael Mulgrew, head of the teachers union in New York City, says the schools may not open “until September.”

San Francisco’s Board of Education has enough time on its hands to vote 6-1 to cancel the names of 44 Americans from their public schools. On Wednesday, the city sued its own school board for failing to get the schools open.

Though teaching modes vary by state, what data exist suggests in-person teaching at public schools is below 25%, while it’s about 60% at private schools, which have largely reopened.

[sergeantdave]

“OK, dave. Since school boards are public votes, how do you plan to so simply vote out the liberals??”

Seriously? Is this a trick question?

Show up at the polling station and vote the leftists out.

[DownInFlames]

I remember the Release Time Religion.program where they put us kids in trailers off school property to not offend the atheists in 1961.

[Maudeen]

They also could care less about the curriculum which is molding the minds of young people. What most don’t realize . . . their children are not theirs. . .they are on loan from God to bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. They will be held accountable and the millstone around the neck thing may be more common place than one wants to think. Keeping children away from Jesus is very serious.

[Tejas Rob]

>>Many parents are losing faith in their closed public schools<<

Great news, they are nothing but left wing indoctrination centers.

“Everyday Conservatives willingly surrender their children to their enemy” - Michael Malice

[ssfromla]

Ha Ha! What I said when they first closed was that this was a good thing and parents at home were going to see what their children are and are not learning.

They are shooting themselves in the foot and I love it.

[Bonemaker]

...despite pleas from the city’s progressive filthy mayor, Lori Lightfoot...

[LibsRJerks]

Ha. Have you considered the moral and intellectual incapacity of so many parents these days?

Many are too dumb, too liberal, too preoccupied with their own phones, or too distracted by the drama in their own miserable lives to try to homeschool their kids. Most don’t have the presence of mind to do such a thing. Or, both parents are working 80 hrs a week to pay the taxes and mortgage on the 4 bedroom with the pool in the suburbs, make the payment on the Lexus, etc.

[jeffers]

Home school saves us the trouble of gutting and rebuilding the whole commie edu system.

Thanks, Dims!

:-)

[LibsRJerks]

I don’t feel the slightest pity for these parents. Half vote democrat and put teachers on some sort of godly pedestal that they have never deserved. They have willingly, sheepishly gone along with all of this since the beginning, most of them.

And the kids do suffer. I work in psychiatry and what I’m seeing is appalling. Straight A students now getting D’s and don’t care if they ever go back to school again. Seriously. The cost to the ER’s and the inpatient programs has to be enormous right now, because I get an intake every week of some 14 year old who can’t cope with distance learning and being locked up !” in the house all day with their older stressed out parents. It’s PITIFUL, but no one cares — we have to “do it for the greater good, you know!” Then again ...these kids have NEVER suffered ...and lack resilience to the core.

[T.B. Yoits]

The tragedy is people think schools are there to educate their children.

There's are more things that schools fail to teach than they do actually do teach like finance because they don't want people to know them. It's about indoctrination and control, not about education.

Just one example: 'An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't'

The internet has made it even more obvious and with the internet people have no excuse to be ignorant.

[vpintheak]

These teachers will fight to do only 1/2 their jobs at most, and demand full pay.
Fire them all. Hire a new batch that will work. Hey, if they won’t work until September anyway they have plenty of time. It’s for the children, you know.

[Bookshelf]

I hope that someone can correct me if I am wrong: The first public school in New York City was founded in the eighteen forties. It was done to get young criminals off the streets. Prior to that all schooling was privately funded.

[Marko413]

We are smack middle in the range for middle class where i live and we send our daughter to private school. Not nearly as expensive as people scare you about. Now that we have a handle on the curriculum, we are considering even doing home school. Yet i have friends with 3-4x the household income as me and they send their children to public. Guess the new boat was more important.

[sergeantdave]

“Forget that Sgt.! That would require doing more than complaining and tossing out insults and memes on internet message boards... /s”

Okay, I’ll write that down as one of the more mysterious posts I’ve read tonight.

[Reno89519]

Teachers and administrators at closed schools should be laid off and on unemployment. Let’s then see how quickly they want to return to work. End their paid vacation now!

[Fledermaus]

Bull. They’ll do nothing. Americans are now about 80% sheep or lemmings.

Definitely Useful Idiots.

[guthunde47]

The parents should all disenroll their kids, then pass a bill in the state legislature that a homeschooling parent gets PAID per pupil in her home. Might as well - 50% of students in our high school are failing one or more classes. How do they teach chemistry or biology labs, auto shop or woodworking, art, music, ANYTHING, by online iPad only?

LMAO when all these overpaid “teachers” are dumped by the bankrupt states. Awwwwwwe, and they paid union dues and voted Communist, er, Democrat, their whole lives. Awwwwwe.

[wjcsux]

Yep, I lost faith in the government schools many years ago.

[Karliner]

Wow, I had to look that one up. I was in HS in 1971 and we didn’t have to go to the Biology/Evolution lectures. I was student aide and went anyway not knowing what evolution was.

Now evolution is taught as fact.

[Paul R.]

I can’t speak regarding the public schools, but my wife works as a teacher in a private parochial school. In the periods they were relegated to online classes, she had to work harder than when classes were at the school. There are a LOT of practical difficulties, and some near impossibilities, to trying to teach elementary school kids properly, 100% remotely. The only benefit was that her schedule shifted a bit and she didn’t have to leave for work at 6:20 a.m. (The school is 1/2 hour away, and “Mom” also has to drop off her daughter.) Well, two benefits — it saved significant vehicle expenses. But, my wife was working late into the evening, many nights. (Lesson plans, graphics stuff, etc.)

Again, and being unionized, the public schools may be a different matter. But I know many public school educators in this (rather rural) area were pleading on TV for schools to reopen due to what they saw as damage to “their kids”.