The Covid-19 Experiment: Facing the Sins of a Nation that Quit Caring About Public Education Long Ago
The Covid-19 Experiment: Facing the Sins of a Nation that Quit Caring About Public Education Long Ago
Using the word “experimenting” when it comes to opening schools is not comforting to parents and teachers. For teachers, it’s like rubbing salt in a wound. What this pandemic has brought to light are the past inequities of public education, inequities that have been all about dismantling America’s public schools. It has included the disregard and disrespect of professional teachers who hold schools together.
Suddenly it’s important to have clean air to contain the virus. Crumbling facilities with poor ventilation systems have always made air questionable for the children and teachers in poor schools. I’m remembering past students who dealt with allergies and asthma, who’d come to school ill and struggle to learn. Their test scores obviously affected my school’s standardized testing performance. Who listened then?
I’ve been in a modern school that likely practiced deferred maintenance to save money. The classrooms had large intake valves in the ceilings surrounded by dust. The same school lacked soap in the restroom during flu season. Suddenly, America’s schools are supposed to be immaculate to ward off the virus.
Teachers have been mocked by politicians and reformers for years when they begged to have class sizes lowered. Now the huge numbers of students and overcrowded CONTINUE READING: The Covid-19 Experiment: Facing the Sins of a Nation that Quit Caring About Public Education Long Ago