By Andrea Widburg
There are currently two dominant narratives about K-12 education in America: The first is the fact that many teachers in huge urban school districts are refusing to return to their classrooms. The second is the fact that the schools that are back in business are using their power over people’s children to indoctrinate both the children and their families in hard-left ideologies, especially about race and sexuality.
In many Republican-run regions across America, schools are back in session and nothing bad has happened. There hasn’t been a mass teacher or student die-off. Instead, the kids are once again learning and socializing and their parents are back at work. Life is normal.
In many Democrat-run regions, though, the teachers are aggressively resisting returning to school. The Biden administration, which is beholden to the teacher’s unions for money and support, is complicit in allowing the teachers to continue to receive paychecks while refusing to do their jobs.
Jim Geraghty’s Twitter thread shows the game-playing from the federal government:
Also in today’s Morning Jolt, back in July 2020, the Newton, Mass., school district was struggling with the familiar issues of reopening schools and how to keep a safe distance between people. (bit.ly/3jU0MgK)
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller emailed a Harvard Professor of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Disease to weigh in, asking, “On a policy issue, we are leaning to 6’ of separation in our classrooms rather than the 3’ that DESE/WHO allow. Thoughts?” (bit.ly/3jU0MgK)
The reply from Harvard’s chief of infectious disease was clear:
“I do think if people are masked it is quite safe and much more practical to be at 3 feet. I think this is very viable for the middle/high schools and even late grade schools and would improve the feasibility.”
“I suspect you may want to be at 6f for some of the very young kids who can’t mask.” She also referred the town leaders to Harvard’s COVID-19 School and Community Resource Library document, which made the same assessment. (bit.ly/3jU0MgK) Harvard’s chief of infectious disease in July was . . . Rochelle Walensky, now the director of the CDC. (bit.ly/3jU0MgK)
So in July, Walensky told her own school district, in writing, if people are masked it is quite safe and much more practical to be at 3 feet for the middle/high schools and even late grade schools.
But now as CDC Director, she says six feet is needed. (bit.ly/3jU0MgK)
Walensky’s latest effort to help teachers to stay out of the classroom while collecting a paycheck is to claim that public schools need mold remediation. Parents – and, indeed, all taxpayers — can be forgiven for being furious at the con game going on.
However….
When you look at what’s going on in America’s schools, maybe it’s a good thing to limit students’ exposure to some of them. At New York’s East Side Community School, the principal sent White students home with a “tool for action” to give to their parents. Among the actions required was to become “white traitors” and to advocate for “white abolition.”
Perhaps we should all be thinking about East Side Community School abolition.
Meanwhile, at a public school in Salt Lake City, a teacher “read a book about a transgender child to a class of third graders last month – which set of a backlash from parents.” It appears that the teacher read the book at a student’s request and had no idea what it was about. In response to the parents’ anger about their children being taught that body dysmorphia is normal, the school is reviewing the literature in its “equity book bundles” program.
This program is ostensibly aimed at challenging racism and homophobia. In the homophobia category is a book about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in America. Milk was also a pederast.
Parents need to demand that schools stop teaching “values” and, instead, focus on their core mission: teaching children reading, writing, arithmetic, civics, and a straightforward American history that acknowledges both that America is exceptional and that, while it’s erred, it always seeks in the end to do the right thing. Until that happens, it may be best for students to have less contact with America’s education establishment.