A Bad Decision? Part 2

Did America make a mistake by not keeping K-12 schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic?

A new book, authored by David Zweig, titled An Abundance of Caution, suggests so.

But an article appearing in The New York Times last month tells us that K-12 leaders are still debating whether schools should have been closed and what our public education system is prepared to do when the next pandemic hits.

Below are excerpts from the article, written by Times’ reporters Dana Goldstein and Sarah Mervosh:

“Over the course of 20 days in March, 2020, 55 million American children stopped going to school as COVID-19 swept the United States.”

“What was impossible to anticipate then was that millions of those students would not return to classrooms full-time until September 2021, a year and a half later.”

“Those children and teenagers, often in public schools in Democratic areas, remained online at home while private schools, child-care centers, public schools in conservative regions, office buildings, bars, restaurants, sports arenas and theaters sputtered back toward normalcy.”

“Five years on, the devastating impact of the pandemic on children and adolescents is widely acknowledged across the political spectrum. School closures were not the only reason the pandemic was hard on children, but research shows that the longer schools stayed closed, the farther behind students fell.”

“What would happen if another health crisis came along – a pressing concern, as cases of measles and bird flu emerge? In the face of a new unknown pathogen, how would school leaders and lawmakers make decisions?”

“’It’s so important for Democrats to do a retrospective on this episode,’ said Representative Jake Auchincloss, Democrat of Massachusetts, who represents a district in the Boston suburbs where some schools were fully or partially closed for a year. He has argued that during the pandemic, his party ‘over-indexed’ toward the views of teachers’ unions and epidemiologists, who often pushed for a slow, cautious approach to reopening schools.”

“The extended closures ‘crystallized how the party has been failing in governance,’ Mr. Auchincloss said.”

“In some ways, moving to online learning would be easier next time, now that nearly all schools give students their own laptops or tablets. And in places where schools remained closed longer, some people in positions of power, including health officials and leaders of local teachers’ unions, say they stand by the decisions they made at the time.”

“Still, in interviews with more than a dozen leaders in health, education and politics, including some who were key figures at the time, others said they would take a different approach in the future, and try to do more to avoid extended shutdowns for entire school districts.”

“’Yes, I’ve learned a lot from this,’ said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a powerful force in Democratic politics who at times worked behind-the-scenes to negotiate reopenings. She also stood by locals in places like Philadelphia and Chicago, where union members fought for vaccines, tests, ventilation and other safety measures – even after classrooms in other parts of the country had reopened.”

…

“Few education or health leaders doubt that it was right for schools to close in March 2020, when much about COVID-19 was unknown.”

“But by early summer, there was a spate of evidence that pointed toward a careful reopening. Classrooms had reopened abroad, with research showing that there was limited spread of the virus inside schools. It was becoming clear that children tended to be less severely affected by the virus than many adults were, and that young children were less likely to spread the disease.”

“The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a report in June 2020 recommending that schools reopen. Republican-run states like Texas and Florida forged ahead with plans to offer in-person instruction to families who wanted it.”

“Yet thousands of schools in Democratic-majority states like California, Oregon, Washington and Maryland stayed closed or partially closed for another full year.”

“Policymakers who had a role in those decisions argue that applying evidence from abroad was difficult because of several factors, including higher U.S. infection rates, less consensus around masking and limited availability of virus tests.”

“The politicization of the pandemic also played a role. President Trump repeatedly called on schools to reopen, while many Democratic officials and advocacy groups fought for stricter safety measures and more federal aid to schools.”

“In addition, conflicting advice from health experts caused confusion.”

“The Centers for Disease Control had, at times, recommended greater precautions than the pediatrics academy did, including maintaining six feet of distance between desks. In the summer of 2020, health agencies in states like California advised schools to remain closed in areas where case levels were high – which was almost everywhere.”

…

“But research now suggests that keeping schools closed was not a significant factor in slowing the virus, particularly after other parts of society were up and running. More people died in some Republican regions, Dr. [Sean] O’Leary, [lead author of the pediatric academy’s report], said, ‘not because the schools were open, but because they didn’t wear masks and didn’t get vaccinated.’”

“Almost everyone in education acknowledges that extended school closures were damaging. Academic achievement plummeted and has not recovered. Student absence rates are double their prepandemic levels. And remote learning pushed children further into screens and away from learning and play in the physical world.”

“But even today there is not broad consensus about whether the lengthy closures were necessary.”

…

I remember the first time I went to the grocery store during the March 2020 COVID-19 outbreak. I wore a mask, rubber gloves, and clothing that covered my entire body. There were arrows that directed me through the grocery store aisles, and folks who didn’t follow the arrows got screamed at by the other shoppers. When I got the groceries home, every item was disinfected, along with the kitchen counters the items were placed on before going into the refrigerator.

Now, when I look back at how we shopped and, quite frankly, did most everything else, I smile.

I smiled because we just didn’t know how to behave. We didn’t know how to behave because we just didn’t know.

Politics pushed aside, most school people didn’t know how to behave either, so some schools opened, and others stayed closed. Some schools were successful with masking, social distancing, and testing, while others struggled. Some schools were successful with distance learning, while most failed miserably.

But here’s the deal. I’m not convinced that our K-12 system is any better prepared to educate our kids during the next pandemic than it was during COVID-19. And for that, we should be embarrassed as a country.

I’ll be away for an extended absence – back May 20^th. Til then. SVB