Masterful essay on school reopening

[Anonymous]

This is written from a San Francisco/Oakland viewpoint (the author lives in the Bay Area), but a lot of it applies to DCPS. The author, a self-described "progressive" who has marched in picket lines with public-school teachers, takes teachers' unions to task for their stance about school reopenings during the pandemic.

"I have never felt so alienated from the people I usually align myself with politically. I will never understand how the left in this country has decided that advocating for putting kids first is somehow right-wing," she writes.

https://rmbodenheimer.medium.com/a-progressive-parents-rant-about-the-politics-surrounding-school-reopening-a816cae963fd

[Anonymous]

This is why covid made me switch from democratic to independent. politics is mostly ideology and simple-mindedness. people pick want they want to believe in. also the democratic party in this area in particular has no spine.

[Anonymous]

Don't forget what the school closures have done to the workforce status of women. Another reason for the left to care. We have to get out of the single issue COVID trance.

[Anonymous]

lol masterful? Just because you agree with it.

[Anonymous]

We have to move past debating "safe" versus "unsafe." Instead, do our best to put mitigation measure in place, consider those populations that need in person most, and give serious thought to the repercussions of continuing to keep schools closed.

I keep reading people saying, "it's only a year," or "lives come before education." We need to protect health and prevent death, but that's not 100% possible. For all students, but especially for those most in need, it is not just a year. It is potentially a year of wages lost through delayed entry to the workforce or extra college, which adds up over a lifetime. It's one thing to value safety above all else, but the day of reckoning will come. It is going to take funding and out of the box thinking to address the learning loss we already have.

[Anonymous]

Yup. We’re in MCPS, but I couldn’t agree with the author more. Not only are there myriad problems related to COVID that aren’t solely the disease itself, but many of them have the potential to interact, creating something of a multiplier effect for long-term negative outcomes. I’m so fed up otherwise intelligent, educated people who are so myopic about this issue. It’s not that they can’t comprehend the complexities, it’s that they deliberately don’t want to, because that would mean admitting they’ve been wrong, and that their wrongness is harming a lot of people.

I guess the one silver lining has been increased appreciation for the people who do get it. I’m hanging onto them for dear life.

[Anonymous]

+1000. Not only that, all of these public health talking heads like Leana Wen could care less about the mental health aspect of all of this for kids. The messaging is terrible - there’s nothing they say about how to do things safely, it’s just don’t do them. Get your asses back to work!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:lol masterful? Just because you agree with it.

+1
'Masterful' next to the excerpt quoted, about feeking alienated by organizations that she'd always been aligned with is borderline TheOnion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. We’re in MCPS, but I couldn’t agree with the author more. Not only are there myriad problems related to COVID that aren’t solely the disease itself, but many of them have the potential to interact, creating something of a multiplier effect for long-term negative outcomes. I’m so fed up otherwise intelligent, educated people who are so myopic about this issue. It’s not that they can’t comprehend the complexities, it’s that they deliberately don’t want to, because that would mean admitting they’ve been wrong, and that their wrongness is harming a lot of people.

I guess the one silver lining has been increased appreciation for the people who do get it. I’m hanging onto them for dear life.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1000. Not only that, all of these public health talking heads like Leana Wen could care less about the mental health aspect of all of this for kids. The messaging is terrible - there’s nothing they say about how to do things safely, it’s just don’t do them. Get your asses back to work!

Ugh, don't get me started on Leana Wen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1000. Not only that, all of these public health talking heads like Leana Wen could care less about the mental health aspect of all of this for kids. The messaging is terrible - there’s nothing they say about how to do things safely, it’s just don’t do them. Get your asses back to work!

Ugh, don't get me started on Leana Wen.

What is her deal? I thought I liked her, but more recently she's seemed completely anti-child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why covid made me switch from democratic to independent. politics is mostly ideology and simple-mindedness. people pick want they want to believe in. also the democratic party in this area in particular has no spine.

I’ve changed too. Not officially, but I will. The party has changed, but I prefer to be independent

[Anonymous]

I'd change too if DC had open primaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1000. Not only that, all of these public health talking heads like Leana Wen could care less about the mental health aspect of all of this for kids. The messaging is terrible - there’s nothing they say about how to do things safely, it’s just don’t do them. Get your asses back to work!

She's the worst. She has a baby, not a school age kid. She has no idea WTF she is talking about.

[Anonymous]

Because public health people, and virologists, and their ilk, have a very narrow POV. They have the luxury of not having to consider anything beyond the very narrow and unimaginative scope of "more virus bad". That's easy: everyone stay home (except for Wen's live-out nanny, of course!).

SBs and policymakers have to take into account many, many, many factors beyond just preventing more cases of covid