Three !!! threat
Now Trump is threatening children.
In reality, many administrators, teachers and parents have expressed concerns about sending students back to school as concerns remain over the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.
Many school districts have also warned they do not have the additional funding needed to keep students safe, and the president is now threatening to cut off funding from them if they don’t reopen.
He’s also threatening the CDC.
And by “meeting” he doesn’t really mean “meeting.”
“I want to cut corners and lower standards. Why do I have to spend money on other people’s kids? Fuck them. Why can’t we just put them in cages like those other kids?”
Funny, I thought he liked “tough.”
Republicans are always on about local control in education. A lot of times it’s bullshit (why should teaching evolution be a local decision?), but this is one case where the ultimate decision making should be local, albeit with federal guidelines, because local districts are best able to gauge whether they meet the criteria for reopening.
And, as usual, the only mention is the safety of children. Do people honestly believe schools are just children sitting around by themselves? Or do they believe adults are simply less important (even though higher risk from COVID)?
I’m just kidding. It’s the latter. The custodians, the lunch ladies, the teachers, the administrative assistants, the school nurses, the librarians…none of them matter. We can’t even mention that they might be at risk from opening schools too early. And for those who point out that you can’t catch it from children (something I suspect we will discover is wrong), they can pass it to each other.
This is an example of poor thinking, poor planning, and poor understanding. Few schools have the ability to social distance, unless class sizes are below 10 (yeah, right). Children will not social distance, it’s not the way they interact. They will not social distance from the adults. It is nearly impossible to maintain full social distancing at a school, though we are kidding ourselves we can. Bending over a desk to help a child with their math? When I have to help students focus their microscope for the first time, or explain that, yes, you do have something on that slide even though it doesn’t look like anything to you? Just handing out papers or picking them up.
We need to stop pretending. Until we have a vaccine that is widely available (preferably free, but I’ll settle for affordable for almost everyone and free at health departments to clients), or effective treatment (same conditions), we have no business opening schools. And this comes from someone who is an advocate for face-to-face teaching, some who rails against the push to put everything online.