School re-opening update: Politics impedes progress
With less than a month before many schools are scheduled to start for the fall, the pace of activity has become fast and furious. Every day brings news of another set of districts that have decided to open onsite, remotely, or with some combination of the two. But this activity is occurring against a backdrop of political sound and fury that is obscuring nuanced discussion, and making progress towards solutions even more difficult than it should be.
In the past couple of weeks, the Trump Administration has turned school re-openings into a political issue. Trump did this by taking a very simplified position in the debate over when and under what conditions schools should re-open. Based on the transcript of his statement on July 7 provided by the White House (which may vary slightly from his spoken remarks), he presented a rosy, one-sided appraisal of the pandemic, leading to the statement that
“So what we want to do is we want to get our schools open. We want to get them open quickly, beautifully, in the fall.”
This was followed by Mike Pence adding
“we convene all of these great leaders from around the country today, Mr. President, because you know that to open up America again, we need to open up our schools again.”
In case anyone didn’t get the message, more recently, the Washington Post has reported that
“The White House and Senate Republicans are developing plans to prod schools to reopen by attaching incentives or conditions to tens of billions of dollars of new aid as part of the next coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said...”
How and when schools should re-open is a complex issue that calls for thoughtful analysis about how to balance concerns related to health and safety, vulnerable populations, best instructional practices, and learning loss—as well as economic impacts. The Trump Administration has not demonstrated the nuanced thinking that these issues call for.
Luckily for them, some of their political opponents have responded more or less in kind, by taking a similarly over-simplified approach from the other side. This CNN interview of Betsy DeVos is a good example. In response to DeVos saying “we have to open schools” with little acknowledgement of the challenges, the interviewer asks, “Yes or no: can you assure that students won’t get coronavirus because they’re going back to school?” The obvious answer is “of course not.” Any activity other than sitting alone in a remote location with no human contact carries some risk. Every one of us is making decisions, every day, that balance our various needs against the level of risk we perceive to be associated with an activity. Re-opening a school building is no different.
In a similar vein, statements from several teachers unions (here’s one example) have pushed districts to go fully remote, out of concern for teachers’ and students’ health and safety. These are of course legitimate concerns—but too often they are presented as merely the opposite of the Trump Administration argument. Where DeVos and others argue for school openings while ignoring the challenges of health and safety, the unions make a nod, at most, to the idea that remote learning is highly disruptive to many students and families.
This isn’t just about competing sound bites and press releases. In California, the legislature passed, and the Governor signed, SB 98. The law is meant to help protect the finances of school districts, but it does so in part by limiting the ability of parents to choose a new school—including online charter schools. The governor’s signing letter acknowledges that the situation is not ideal and requests that the legislature seek “targeted solutions” to this problem, but currently online charter schools in California are not able to receive funding for newly enrolled students, so in at least some cases they are not accepting new students.
While these political operatives and entities push their views, school districts are moving ahead with drawing up plans for the fall. Although some have indicated a preference for onsite re-openings, more appear to be moving ahead with hybrid or fully-remote plans, at least for the fall semester. These districts may be responding to public opinion, as at least one poll suggests that public opinion is on the side of caution. Most of these are individual district decisions, although California is pushing remote learning for most students across the state.
In addition to school district decisions, some observers are creating thoughtful frameworks for balancing competing priorities. As one source states, “there is no question that, under pandemic-free circumstances, students are best served by in-person instruction. But the barriers that school districts face under current circumstances are substantial.” I don’t entirely agree with that sentiment and would change it slightly to say that under normal circumstances, most students are served best by in-person instruction. Leaving that quibble aside, the balancing of priorities is apparent in that statement and is discussed in the entire blog post. This balancing is exactly what responsible leaders are debating.
Even as these discussions are occurring, new information continues to emerge. In particular, three related ideas may point to a new direction that I’ve not yet seen explored in detail. These ideas are:
Remote learning has been, and will likely continue to be, much harder for the youngest students than for older students.
Young children seem to be showing less propensity to spread COVID-19 than older children and teenagers.
For comprehensive K-12 districts (leaving aside districts which are just elementary or just high school), a step towards a solution for instruction in the coming school year may be to treat elementary schools and high schools differently, perhaps very differently.
The next post will look more closely at evidence for these ideas and what they may mean for schools in the coming year.