Uncontrolled Infections, Political Manipulation of Science, Lack of Funding, and Complexity of Operating Schools Make It Hard to Start School Year
Reporting on the complexities of attempting to reopen the public schools in New York City this week, the Washington Post’s Moriah Balingit quotes Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools: “Frankly, I don’t know of another institution, public or private, that has so many moving parts with so much public pressure on it from so many angles on it as much as public schools have… I have never seen a situation like this in the 43-plus years I’ve been doing this work, where public school leaders have devoted so much time, effort, creativity and just sheer endurance in trying to solve a set of problems where there’s just no obvious good resolution.”
A team of reporters from POLITICO covers efforts to prepare for school reopening in the nation’s four largest school districts—New York City Public Schools with 1.1 million students, Los Angeles Unified with 600,000 students, Chicago Public Schools with more than 350,000 students, and Miami-Dade County with 347,000 students. Scale alone is a huge challenge during the pandemic as school districts of this size try to manage staffing, social distancing in classrooms and school buses, ventilation and other safety issues, and a mass of challenges around just securing access for masses of students to online instruction. All this is in addition to scheduling children for complicated hybrid schedules combining in-person and online learning and adapting curriculum and instruction to both modes of education. All these challenges are complicated by a shortage of money and a shortage of clear and consistent guidance from public health officials. The POLITICO reporters remind readers that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran have ordered Miami-Dade Schools to reopen in person this week despite that the county has been hit harder by the coronavirus than the rest of the state. The Governor has threatened to withhold state funding CONTINUE READING: Uncontrolled Infections, Political Manipulation of Science, Lack of Funding, and Complexity of Operating Schools Make It Hard to Start Schoolyear | janresseger