What Does A “Safe Return” To School Look Like? - PopularResistance.Org

What Does A “Safe Return” To School Look Like? - PopularResistance.Org

WHAT DOES A “SAFE RETURN” TO SCHOOL LOOK LIKE?

Ask Teacher Unions.

Powerful elites are willing to sacrifice the lives and futures of millions to feed their own profits. Teachers are fighting back.

Demands for stu­dents and edu­ca­tors to return to in-per­son school­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic are com­ing from Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, both claim­ing the return is nec­es­sary not just to pro­vide high-qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, but to save the econ­o­my and get par­ents back to work. The nar­ra­tive con­scious­ly exploits the needs of par­ents who may not have health­care and who rely on pub­lic schools to care for and edu­cate their chil­dren while they work. It pits par­ents, stu­dents, teach­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers against one anoth­er, using (or ignor­ing) sci­en­tif­ic data to suit the polit­i­cal pur­pose of mon­eyed inter­ests — the bipar­ti­san project of destroy­ing pub­lic schools.

When Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Bet­sy DeVos tweets that par­ents ​“need real options for edu­ca­tion this fall” and #School­ChoiceNow — with­out pro­vid­ing the equip­ment, con­di­tions or funds need­ed to make schools safe — the real mes­sage is clear. The Right is using the push to reopen as a way to inten­si­fy the pri­va­ti­za­tion and mar­ke­ti­za­tion of edu­ca­tion, boost prof­its in the edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor and erode trust in pub­lic schools.

In response, teach­ers’ labor activism — wide­spread and robust in recent years — con­tin­ues to emerge. Teach­ers orga­niz­ing on social media have cam­paigned for var­i­ous sci­en­tif­ic stan­dards to trig­ger reopen­ing; #14DaysNoNewCases, for exam­ple, demands that cam­pus­es only reopen after going two weeks with­out CONTINUE READING: What Does A “Safe Return” To School Look Like? - PopularResistance.Org