Reply to WaPo: How D.C. and its teachers, with shifting plans and demands, failed to reopen schools

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Reply to "WaPo: How D.C. and its teachers, with shifting plans and demands, failed to reopen schools"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Both sides look bad in the article, but i already knew that the union had been obstructionist.  It was helpful to see laid out how the Mayor missed so many opportunities to get the public, parents and principals on her side.  Things might have played out differently if Bowser had effectively built up a coalition behind her.  Unions will run amok if there is no counter pressure pushing back against them and the Mayor alone was not enough.[/quote]

Agreed. I am no deBlasio booster but he decided to make schools a priority and approached each road block from a problem-solving position. Bowser and Ferebee repeatedly responded to challenges by throwing up their hands and just blaming the union, which made itself an extremely convenient scapegoat (if I were a teacher I’d be livid about the decision-making and messaging from the union, which was seemingly designed to enrage parents).

The point is: if they really wanted to open schools, they would have found a way. This wasn’t the moon landing.[/quote]

I said in the very early days of the pandemic that DeBlasio's priority of keeping schools open for in-person learning was the true liberal/leftist position on the issue, just like what many of our leftist European country friends have prioritized. It's really messed up in the USA that wanting to open schools gets you accused of being a Trumper.[/quote]

This. I am from Germany and think American liberals have it completely backwards on this issue. It's crazy that opening public schools has become branded as right-wing in the US.

It's of course related to the politicization of the pandemic overall in the US. Trump's denial of Covid has led the left to go to the other extreme. The way the danger of the virus as a lethal threat to everyone is being hyped in the US has strongly contributed to parents' reluctance to send their kids back, and has stoked hysteria among teachers and the general public. The discourse in Germany isn't nearly as dramatic - the problem of Covid and the need for lockdowns is usually presented as a matter of preventing hospitals from being overrun, not of every infection being a likely death sentence or a high risk for long-term disability.[/quote]

THIS. What we have here is a massive messaging failure. This board is a great example. Hysterical teachers and parents committed to keeping kids out of classrooms until the heat death of the universe if that’s what it takes to stick it to Trump. Yeah, he and his cabinet are craven morons, but as this article shows, so are Bowser and the WTU.

Our poor kids  :( [/quote]

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