Parents are furious that schools can't reopen - The Washington Post - 0 views
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The implicit bargain of the spring was that if everyone complied with the shutdowns, the isolation, the social distancing, the working-while-parenting disasters and the rest, the government would use that time to build enough testing, tracing and public health infrastructure so that students could safely go back to school in person in the fall.
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Instead, having utterly failed to contain the virus, the administration is now employing the crafty tactic of attempting to draw attention away from the pandemic — as if we could be distracted out of noticing that we can no longer safely leave our homes, we have no functioning public institutions (libraries, museums, schools), we have lost more than 139,000 American lives, and we are well on our way into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
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I can’t be the only parent who finds containing my anger about this to be a full-time job on top of the two I’m already performing poorly. So many of us did everything the government asked, and officials responded by doing . . . nothing
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with case numbers rising in 44 out of 50 states, the White House, abruptly abandoning its always spotty commitment to federalism, has begun issuing marching orders about opening schools full-time and on schedule, masks and social distancing be damned.
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In a classic bit of Trump gaslighting, not only has any hope for increased school funding dematerialized, but the administration is threatening to defund individual school districts if they don’t comply with the order to reopen.
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As late summer closes in, there’s a special flavor of rage as parents realize that we’re now being forced to advocate for the very outcome that, a few weeks ago, we were hoping against hope to avoid: keeping school all-online in the fall.
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We agree, for example, that we would give up even our current limited interactions with the world — daily dog walks, weekly grocery runs, the occasional masked-and-distanced walk in the park with a friend — if it meant my daughter could attend the school of her dreams in person.
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Now it’s clear that on a larger societal plane, this is precisely the deal we have all been making every day in real life, though with the terms reversed. What we chose as a country — or rather, what was chosen for us by an administration seemingly committed to chaos and entropy as governing principles — was to jeopardize the future of public education while prioritizing the opening of restaurants, bars and Home Depots
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If we were willing, right now, to collectively agree to give up other activities for a time — according to many epidemiologists, a hard six-week lockdown plus rigorous public masking would do it — we could lower infection rates enough to open schools safely
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Prioritizing schools in this way would be a universal public good, even for Americans with no children and no connection to the school system. Set aside the enormous significance of education for children’s enrichment, socialization and health; just getting them out of the house during the week would allow parents to start returning to work full time.
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most Americans are concerned that reopening schools for in-person learning will lead to a coronavirus surge, and 35 percent of parents think they shouldn’t open at all.
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Whichever we go with, we will no doubt spend the semester wondering if we harmed either our child’s education or our community’s health by not picking the other option.
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Most of us are resigned to go back to the hell of online learning, because the only alternative our leaders have left us with is even worse.