Opposing view: For now, focus on remote learning
A public safety-minded police chief and truth-telling scientist frantically warn of a deadly, unseen menace. A bungling, economically concerned mayor ignores the threat and encourages people to enjoy the summer.
With paralleling themes of mortal danger versus hubris, and reason versus demagoguery, it’s clear why some have compared the 1975 film classic “Jaws” with the coronavirus experience. But in the debate over reopening schools, there’s an updated plot twist: Despite mounting dead bodies and unmitigated peril, the mayor has not only demanded that shark-infested beaches open, but he also has demanded, in all caps, that the town’s children and lifeguards immediately start swimming.
In the film, knowing the mayor’s reckless, shortsighted rejection of reality will have lethal consequences is dramatic irony. In real life, it is tragedy. Welcome to Summer 2020.
Abandoned by any semblance of national leadership during a raging pandemic, students, teachers and staff are being told to jump into the deep end and return to school buildings. They will be risking their lives and their families’ lives, and endangering their communities to do so. All the precious time and resources spent to implement hybrid models and social distancing protocols will be washed away with the building’s first positive COVID-19 case. Then it will be a hard pivot back home, using the same scattershot remote learning practices developed in an emergency.
That is why the smartest, most practical strategy is marshaling energy and dollars into developing as robust and equitable a remote learning plan as possible. This is far from ideal. We know remote teaching is not even remotely teaching. But it will save lives, offer the most consistent education for our children this fall — and provide a solid foundation on which to build a stronger hybrid model, later in the year.
Those arguing that children must return to buildings need to know: This is almost impossible.
❚ First, classrooms will only be as safe as a local jurisdiction’s resources and political ideologies allow. With Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines labeled as “very tough” by President Donald Trump and “flexible” by the Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the federal government is clearly more concerned with plausible deniability than safety measures.
❚ Second, as districts scramble to paste together opening procedures, no thorough academic planning is taking place — and even if it was, there is no feasible implementation.
The best move right now for our children is having one concentrated place to learn — online — with educators who had time to troubleshoot, refine and uplevel practices. After all, the only experts in remote learning are those of us who actually just went through it.
Christine Vaccaro is a New York City high school educator, dual certified in English Language Arts and Special Education. She blogs for the Badass Teachers Association. (Read a longer version of her view at usatoday.com/ opinion)