Pandemic Pods and Micro Schooling
Pods, Privatization and Pandemic Wages of Whiteness
The bright-eyed bushy tailed, white Atlanta-area elementary school kids featured frolicking, reading, and doing math problems in suburban “Pods” on a recent CNN morning show were Exhibit A for everything that is wrong with Covid-era education.
Pods are the latest trend in elite learning for privileged, mostly white families who can afford to provide their kids with protected academic enclaves beyond the Covid storm. Decried for their exclusivity, pods simply crystallize the disparities that already exist in hyper-privatized, segregated K-12 American schools. One widely touted K-4 pod run by New York’s elite Hudson Lab school will run parents $125,000 for the academic year, or $68,750 for a five-month commitment.
As districts across the nation pushback against Trump’s fascist demand to reopen, pod learning underscores how the neoliberal crisis of public education has accelerated. Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have exhibited near sadistic glee in threatening to withhold federal funding from districts that don’t comply. Over the past several months, DeVos has moved even more aggressively to siphon funding from public schools to private religious schools.
Meanwhile, some charter schools unscrupulously double dipped to receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds, from the Small Business Administration, designated for struggling small CONTINUE READING: Pandemic Pods and Micro Schooling - LA Progressive
