Posted on 03/06/2021 4:15:46 AM PST by Kaslin
Approximately 3 million of the most marginalized students in the country have been missing from our schools since March 2020. That’s 3 million children completely isolated from the services, socialization, and education they so desperately need.
The consequences of taking school away from children have been severe. Teen suicide rates have skyrocketed. Overdoses are at their highest levels ever. Students still lack access to the technology they need to access their educational materials. As Lawrence Jones aptly expressed on Fox News Primetime, our students are struggling in silence.
We are witnessing one of the greatest failures of government on a generation in history.
Despite promises to make opening schools a priority, the Biden administration has walked back expectations due to mounting pressure from unions and activist groups. Instead, they’ve called for standardized testing to establish a “baseline” of where students are due to the pandemic—an interesting request, considering the doors to most of our schools aren’t even open yet.
A simple scan of the headlines and the cries of the teacher’s unions would lead one to believe it is nearly impossible to safely open our public schools to help these children and the millions of families who are suffering in the face of lockdowns and lockouts.
This is patently false. Across the nation, hundreds of school districts have been open since last Fall, educating students safely, addressing learning gaps, and making sure our children don’t fall farther behind.
In fact, the Council of the Great City Schools reported as of March 1, 2021, 51 of its 76 member districts—serving 8.2 million children—are open for some type of in-person learning. Many are offering school sports, arts, and other extracurriculars to ensure a quality experience for those families who make that choice.
We are one of those families.
My son had the opportunity to return to school in person last September. With transparency and a commitment to safety, our district has done an amazing job providing an education to students both in-person and virtually, depending on family choice.
My son returned to school in person, played football, basketball, and is now competing in school-sponsored track and field. I didn’t make this decision in a vacuum—science and CDC recommendations told me it was safe, and my son is exponentially better for it. His mental health and overall engagement are so much better than last Spring.
But I have to ask—what are these schools doing that the others claim they cannot? Why is the media allowing teacher’s unions to falsely claim we cannot safely open schools when it is very clear from tangible examples that it is, in fact, possible and being done at this very moment?
It cannot simply be vaccine access, as the CDC director said schools can safely reopen without vaccinating teachers. It cannot be because people fear classrooms are super spreader events, because that has been disproven. It cannot be a lack of evidence that safety protocols can be implemented effectively since thousands of schools are open and functioning without incident.
The interest groups who are encouraging school closures are building an achievement gap that will haunt our youngest generation for the duration of their lives. Children who are currently in school are not only happier, healthier, and growing in their education—they are advancing rapidly past their peers who are stuck at home.
These disparities increasingly fall on socio-economic lines, where gaps were already severe and where they are the hardest to overcome. By refusing to open schools, or at least give families a choice, unions and public officials are failing these children. And they’re doing so in the face of overwhelming evidence that this can and should be done and is working where it’s happening.
It’s time to stop playing games. It’s time to stop moving the goalposts on our children. It’s time to stand up for the students who are suffering at home, and open ALL of our schools now.
All of the above is true, but there doesn’t seem to be an answer as to exactly why the unions are so opposed to having the teachers go back to school. The “safety” chant is ridiculous and they know it.
Teachers and students have been back in Catholic and other church schools and most private schools since last September, and the body bags are not piling up outside the classroom doors. This (non-lethal) disease seems to stalk only public school teachers.
I can’t figure out the end-game of the unions. More money? Or simply a demonstration of their power?
“The world needs ditch diggers, too!”
We import them.
From the source report ABC links to:
“First and foremost, public leaders at every level of government must develop, implement, and enforce coherent, science-based strategies to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, stomp out community transmission, and eventually enable safe community reopenings, prioritizing a safe return to school for all.”
^^^ THIS is the problem. Stop worshipping science and OPEN UP SCHOOLS.
“More money? Or simply a demonstration of their power?”
They want hazard pay plus an enlargement of their ranks, by requiring much smaller class sizes (to allow safe distancing). More teachers = more dues income for the NEA.
Always follow the money.
Many of the teachers/unions that refuse to go back are out there talking about how return to the classroom is a death sentence for them. There is not a single shred of evidence to support this. We’ve had nurses working with Covid patients since the beginning, police/fire/EMS, truck drivers, retail, utilities, transportation, etc. Who have worked every day through this and there are no massive stacks of bodies in the sectors.
The latest mantra was we can’t go back to school until we get vaccinated, now that is slowly start to shift in the eyes of some teachers to we can’t go back to school because the parents aren’t vaccinated and could spread Covid to the kids, etc.
And with smaller class sizes they will demand new/renovated schools built with all sorts of “safety” enhancements because of bat flu, more support staff, etc. All of these are giant gifts to the unions that would be involved in building and the operation of these places.
its called “bureaucrat’s nirvana”
thats where the entire budget has been successfully converted to salaries, bennies and pensions. No money “wasted” on bricks and mortar, supplies or services.
We have allowed them to forget whom its is exactly they’re working for.. The consequence of no accountability
Imports and illegals are yet another complete FAILURE of a generation by our corrupt government. One of the few and most important functions they should even be concerning themselves with.
Teachers unions are running the show in districts across the USA. School boards cower in fear and give in to them. It’s beyond the pale. It would be far better if they were ordered to open schools, the unions strike, the kids get homeschooled or just miss school for a while; than to deal with the sun-par “education” they are getting. Then districts can hire teachers that will teach and the unionized teachers can pound sand and find another job.
It’s sad to see people here, who claim to hate public schools, demanding that they re-open. Kind of like Jews demanding that Auschwitz be re-opened after WW2.
Are these teachers collecting their school pay while they work second jobs for additional income?
“ Approximately 3 million of the most marginalized students in the country have been missing from our schools since March 2020.”
Lots of non-marginalized children - many more than three million - are being harmed as well.
I am working on school reopening among other things. It is enormously discouraging. But the argument quoted above is divisive and wrong.
ALL children are being harmed. ALL children need to go back. And the children whose families are paying high taxes to pay teachers who are not working are being robbed unjustly and unfairly.
Absolutely!!! And from the same administrators who can’t complain enough about their budgets!!
All the expense is ALWAYS passed along to taxpayers and in the case of colleges, passed on in the form of tuition increases!!
We’ll have a couple more generations of unemployable morons taxpayers can support.
The constantly shifting goalposts. It will never end if Biden, Fauci and the teachers have their way.
But then, none of this is based on reality anyway, so I guess they’re free to do what they want...which is obviously to collect a fat paycheck and great benefits without having to bother their pretty little heads or even get out of bed in the morning.
And the taxpayers are fools enough to let them get away with it.
The public schools are not good, but we pay for them and they at least give a place for kids to go and play sports, or not actually learn anything. Keeping the public schools closed has been very hard on kids whose parents are either not available to teach them at home, not capable of it, or simply don’t want to.
Personally, I hope this de facto teachers’ strike results in the collapse of the public school system. Trump proposed at some point that the current system be scrapped and the money be given as direct grants available to parents for the school of their choice, or even the creation of learning pods (a variation on home-schooling where several parents hire a teacher for group instruction of their kids). Needless to say, this never went anyplace.
In fact, under Trump, Betsy deVos was hated by the unions because she worked very hard for the creation of charter school alternatives even before the Covid nonsense.
However, at the moment, since the teachers and the schools are still being paid for with our tax dollars, the teachers should be required to actually show up and open the schools. Then the parents have to start looking for other options, and I think a lot of them need to demand a serious reduction in the amount of tax money paid to run the corrupt, ineffectual “public” schools and they need to demand an end to the insane indoctrination that passes for curricula nowadays. After all, if they find another non-public school, they’re essentially paying twice, because their taxes are still going for the public schools that they don’t use. Parents are way too passive.
I know what you’re saying, but the money is secondary if the schools are damaging our kids, which they are. I get that it’s tough on many parents, but they didn’t have to put so much reliance on the schools for daycare, especially those who understand (or claim to understand) how damaging they are.
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