The great bard William Shakespeare, in his play "Hamlet," wrote, "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles," Truer words were never spoken, especially in our own perilous times in the aftermath of Covid-19.
The words could rightly be changed to "To reopen or not to reopen, that is the question" as schools grapple with tough decisions whether to reopen schools as the calendar quickly shifts toward autumn and the date set for the return of students to campus. Even here, in the town I live in, they are working on that very issue, as school sports are being pushed back later in the year. One thing is certain, schools will look very different.
In light of recent announcements that children, once thought immune from Covid-19, are now super carriers, and following the posting of a viral video of a crowded school hallway filled with unmasked teens that led to the expulsion of the student who posted the said video and the discovery that over a dozen of those teens were diagnosed with Covid-19, the trend becomes even more worrisome.
President Donald Trump pushed for the reopening of schools and has threatened to withhold federal funding from districts that choose not to reopen. Although I agree that children need to learn - and interaction with others is part of that process - especially in light of the fact that students were cut off in March when schools shuttered around the nation. But, I also would argue that safety of students, parents, teachers and the public should always be a factor in major decisions, and there is a huge majority that would agree with that.
Schools should reopen, as long as it is deemed safe to do so. Students need to learn and, even in as advanced a nation as we are, not every student has access to computers and reliable Internet services to participate in on-line learning. Especially in some parts of the rural South. And, there are even students in the area where I live where access to the Internet is spotty at best.
There has never been a period in American history when the issue over not opening has arisen in this country. Schools have opened every academic year like clockwork, some in August and others in September, but they have always opened through war and economic disaster. The first public school was opened on April 23, 1635. Known as Boston Latin School, it was opened as an all-boys school by Philemon Pormont, a Puritan settler. Boston Latin School was strictly for college preparation. It was modeled after Free Grammar School of Boston, England. The English school taught Latin and Greek and was centered on the humanities. Some of Boston Latin School’s most well-known alumni include John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Benjamin Franklin was a dropout! Today, the school still operates as a private school.
In July, Scott Gottlieb, American Institute scholar and former Food and Drug Administration chief, said, "It’s going to be very hard for states that have epidemics right now to reopen their schools in the fall, tragically,” This assertion must have landed with a thud. Six days later, Gottlieb wrote an opinion piece in Wall Street Journal where he opened with the contradictory imperative: “Schools should open in the fall.”
Gottlieb’s optimistic outlook was not without caveats. He conceded it would be difficult (though not impossible) for the states now seeing a surge in COVID-19 infections to pursue any kind of reopening. But the contours of what has now become an entirely politicized debate around in-person education do not seem to observe the regional distinctions Gottlieb described. The stage is now set for a bitter battle between the parents of students, their teachers, and the politicians who must arbitrate this dispute. And, so far, those politicians are siding with teachers.
A late May survey showed that over half the teachers polled favored keeping schools closed indefinitely and about one fifth of teachers said they would refuse to go back to school if they reopened.
That apprehension has not abated in the intervening weeks. As New York Times recently reported, teachers around the country have taken to social media to argue that classrooms should not reopen at all until their localities had seen zero new Covid-19 cases for at least two weeks. Educators have pushed back against expert guidance like that provided by Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommend guidelines for safely reintegrating students into their schools. “Educators are using some of the same organizing tactics they employed in walkouts over issues of pay and funding in recent years to demand that schools remain closed,” the Times reported.
The highly localized debate around reopening public schools ensures that the issue cannot be fairly summarized in one blog post. And yet, an overview of two municipalities with wildly divergent infection rates - New York City and Los Angeles - does suggest that the issue has been nationalized.
New York City has reopened schools on a part-time basis. Students receive perhaps two or three days of in-person education. Nevertheless, many teachers protested reopening or sought medical exemptions to teach remotely. But, while 53 percent of the city’s adult population believed reopening for in-person education was a dangerous idea, a staggering 75 percent of school-age parents disagreed.
But, New York is different, we are told. There is a sustained downward trend in new Covid-19 cases in the state, so parents are, of course, more comfortable with classrooms. Right? Well, that does not seem to matter much in California. There, with new infections on the rise, the same tension between parents and teachers is unfolding.
Recently, Los Angeles’ unified school district teachers voted overwhelmingly against reopening classrooms in the fall. The city has since relented to the demands of its teachers. We must assume, then, that these teachers care more for the safety of children than their own parents. A Survey USA poll of California parents found that a plurality - 34 percent - favored at least a hybrid learning plan that would partially reopen schools. This finding was confirmed by a California Opinion Surveys study, which showed that 57 percent of state residents favored either a partial or full reopening. Just 37 percent backed full-time distance learning.
That same survey showed that there is increased apprehension among parents over the quality of education that distance learning provides and that distaste with the status quo is observable across the country. A Gallup poll released in June revealed that 56 percent of parents found distance learning to be “difficult.” That Gallup poll also showed that a whopping 56 percent of all parents want full-time, in-person schooling. Only 7 percent of those polled backed full-time distance learning.
Public opinion would appear to favor in-person education. But, teachers and their unions have effectively leveraged their political clout and the valid concerns they have about the health risks of working in a classroom environment to promote a political outcome that is otherwise unsupported by the public they serve. Those at-risk teachers have a powerful story to tell, but so do parents.
Survey the national media landscape, and it is not hard to find the sentiments of the 7 percent of parents Gallup surveyed. Though many acknowledge that the choice to keep their children out of classrooms is a luxury, it is one that working parents simply cannot afford.
Even those who are less than gung-ho about the prospect of in-person teaching concede that their livelihoods (and the welfare of their children) depend on it. Many parents have found the effects of distance learning on their children to be emotionally stultifying or insufficient to their educational needs. Others just do not have the means.
We are left with two competing but entirely valid interests - the health and success of children versus that of their educators. But, the indefinite postponement of in-person education is an abrogation of the social contract. Those who sought out their districts and pay property taxes commensurate with the services they pursued are being told they are out of luck. And, they are not entitled to a refund.
Until and unless these parents resolve to organize in the way teachers and administrators have, they will continue to be dismissed by their elected officials. It has been clear for some time that political currency is now a function of the size of the crowd you can summon into the streets. It was a terrible precedent to set, but it is, nonetheless, now fully established.
That is how the game is played.
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