So, Educating Your Child Is Now 'Oppression'

If white parents dare supplement their children's education, that is "white privilege" and perpetuates "oppression" of black people.

In July, Patriot Post analyst Arnold Ahlert provided a good summary of how a growing number of parents are coping with “distance learning,” specifically forming “education pods” for their children. These are basically micro-school groups, “clusters of 3-6 families with similar aged (and sometimes same-school) children co-quarantined with each other, who hire one tutor for in-person support for their kids.”

The fact that parents are supplementing their children’s education, apart from the control and supervision of the government school cartels and their union commissars, is a frontal threat to that control. The Washington Post protested this loss of statist control in an article, “The huge problem with education ‘pandemic pods,’” complaining, “When parents with privilege open their checkbooks and create private one-room schoolhouses for their children, they follow a long pattern of weakening the public education system” with “potentially disastrous results for communities currently — and perpetually — in the crosshairs of this country’s oppression.”

In other words, if groups of parents, especially white parents, dare supplement the education of their children during the CV19 lockdowns, they are exercising “white privilege” and perpetuating “oppression” of black people.

As Atlanta “learning specialist” and social justice whiner Clara Totenberg Green protests: “Paradoxically, at a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has prompted a national reckoning with white supremacy, white parents are again ignoring racial and class inequality when it comes to educating their children. As a result, they are actively replicating the systems that many of them say they want to dismantle.”

That’s right. If you provide supplemental education opportunities for your children, you are wantonly undermining the objectives of the BLM Marxists. The bureaucratic mindset of these “educators” is so detached from reality, so saturated in bubble group sick think, that it defies any rational and logical explanation.

The latest entry in this Orwellian condemnation of parents comes from the Beltway suburb of Fairfax, Virginia, where unions have made sure schools are still not open to students. Consequently, parents had requested permission to hire local teachers as tutors for their kid pods. Administrators of the $3 billion Fairfax County Public Schools responded, “While FCPS doesn’t and can’t control these private tutoring groups, we do have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity for all students.” Thus, “FCPS cannot accommodate such requests.”

Got that? No doubt they would like to “control these private tutoring groups.” Shame on all of you for demonstrating more than the average interest in the welfare of your children’s education. Oh, and you homeschoolers are totally guilty of “widening the gap in educational access and equity.” For the record, the vast majority of these parents are not wealthy, but most have the benefit of being married, and all sacrifice greatly for love of their children.

In case you missed it, earlier this week Thomas Gallatin wrote on another union concern with online education. While most teachers are uniformly devoted to their students, leftist teachers, who regularly indoctrinate children with their demented worldview, are worried parents might be listening in on their classes. I highly recommend it!

SOURCE 





Shutting Schools Won't Stop COVID

Yes, children can spread coronavirus, but shuttering schools only prolongs the misery.

One way or another, children will need to get back to school in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, the situation has become so politicized that clear, unemotional logic has been jettisoned for sensationalism and fearmongering. The debate over opening schools epitomizes this reality.

Recall that the original purpose for the shutdown was to flatten the curve in order to prevent hospitals from becoming overrun with severely sickened patients. That goal has been achieved. Yet that goalpost was soon moved to what now amounts to an unending shutdown until a vaccine is available, a prospect that, Vladimir Putin’s boasts notwithstanding, is still at least months if not years away. Hunkering in place is economically and sociologically untenable.

Pending a vaccine, the only means to reach what we hope will be herd immunity is for the majority of people to contract the virus and develop antibodies. And those who will be least impacted by contracting the virus happen to be children and younger adults.

Given those facts, the argument for stalling the full reopening of schools has centered on the likelihood that children will spread the virus to vulnerable older adults. Initial reports indicated that children did not spread the virus to adults, though that was never going to remain true. Indeed, newer data appears to show that children are just as susceptible to contracting and transmitting the virus as are adults. That said, we shouldn’t be locking down the least likely segment of the population to succumb to the virus, hampering their future development by retarding their education and their parents’ ability to work.

Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was asked a fearmongering and sensationalizing question over whether sending kids to school was “worth it” if “an older teacher were to die from this.” Reynolds pointedly responded:

It would be naive for us to think that at no point we’re not going to see positive cases in school districts. … But we also have to think about the whole child, and everything. We have to think about their livelihoods as well. I mean, I’ve got moms that are trying to work full-time and figure out what they’re going to do with the kids and a schedule that’s Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday one week, and it’s Tuesday and Thursday the next. How do you start to put together some stability with those kinds of arrangements? And parents that are really fearful, they have the option to do … 100% online learning. … I have grandchildren that are going back to school. I would never do anything that would put them in harm’s way intentionally. I don’t think any of us would. I have a daughter who’s a teacher in a public school system, who’s teaching this summer and she’s expecting.

Exactly. Life is never lived in certainty but is always a series of decisions based upon risk assessments. Every time someone gets into a vehicle to drive to work or the store is a risk that may end his or her life. And that is merely one of an almost innumerable number of risks people face every day. The vast majority of Americans will not die from the coronavirus, but the fact also remains that all Americans will die of something at some point. Death cannot be avoided, though we’re fortunate to live in a society where the majority of us can expect to live long lives. In any case, shuttering schools in a feckless attempt to prevent the spread of a virus that is most dangerous to the elderly is doing more damage to children than good.

SOURCE 






The Left’s School Choice Conundrum

Say what you will about the liberals’ insistence on keeping the schools closed. They at least deserve credit for being consistent in their hostility to school choice – no matter the circumstance.

For decades, liberal activists and the teachers’ unions have joined forces to fight against homeschooling, charter schools, private schools and vouchers – in other words, against school choice, in any form. The teachers’ unions were unequivocal in their messaging. School choice, they have always insisted, overall hurts students, taxpayers and the public schools. Competition, which works so well in every other industry, does not work with schools, they say.

While school choice has been a broad boogeyman for leftists, homeschooling is a particular thorn in their side. In the spring, just as most schools across the country were closing their doors for COVID lockdowns, and as nearly 50 million children were heading home for some form of homeschooling, Harvard University published an ill-timed article with the title “The Risks of Homeschooling” and a picture of a child in home resembling a jail (with subtle bars on the windows). The article went to great lengths to describe the allegedly harrowing consequences of homeschooling.

Given the far Left’s forceful lobbying on this matter for years, it is a surprising turn of events that we find ourselves here today, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with teachers’ unions fighting to keep the public schools closed – and to keep the untenable situation of nationwide homeschooling. The school choice fight has shifted its focus, and now the unpalatable choice from the teachers’ perspective is the choice many parents have made, or would like to make, to send their children to school. 

The verdict is in. Online, distance-learning programs failed on a grand scale to provide quality education to students all across the globe in the spring. That’s precisely why most European countries abandoned the online classrooms and went back into the real classrooms. The success stories from these newly reopened classrooms in Europe remind us that there is no excuse to fail our children by forcing them to do online curriculum, and, furthermore, that there are safe and commonsense ways to educate within classroom walls.

What’s even worse is that there are deep and pronounced racial disparities in the education outcomes of online classes, and that the achievement gap is now widening because of the unequal access to online education. African American and Hispanic children have been disproportionately negatively affected by the school closures, with studies showing that a lack of reliable Internet access in many minority homes meant large numbers of students in these communities were not just left behind, but left out completely.

Despite these realities, the teachers’ unions remain fixated on their pro-shutdown position.

The unions, not wanting to let this crisis go to waste, have seized the moment. In Los Angeles, one teachers' union has demanded Medicare for All before allowing schools to reopen. In Iowa, teachers have been writing their own obituaries and sending them to the governor to make their point that school doors must remain firmly shut. Are we to take these politically-motivated stunts seriously?

Five weeks ago, I sat at a table in the White House East Room and told President Trump that his instincts were right – schools must reopen. As a mom to two high school seniors, I urged the president to do everything in his power to encourage the safe and speedy reopening of America’s schools. The president understands that reopening schools is a moral imperative for our students and that in-person instruction is the best chance we have to quash the racial disparities in education outcomes.

Armed with the knowledge that COVID-19 is largely not deadly for children (and, in fact, is less deadly than last year’s flu), and also equipped with the recent studies about the dismal state of online education, parents should be empowered to make the decision of how their children will learn this year – online, or in person. Parents deserve to have the option to send their children to classrooms. That choice, however, is one the teachers’ unions are fighting tooth and nail to take from parents.

In case there was any ambiguity about where the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would side in the feud between parents and the teachers’ unions, Biden made clear last month whose banner he carries. Speaking virtually to the National Education Association – the largest teachers’ union in the country – Biden vowed loyalty and made much of the fact that his wife is a member: “When we win this election, we’re going to get the support you need and the respect you deserve. You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.”

With President Trump’s commitment to reopening schools and partnering with parents, and Joe Biden’s commitment to the raw political agenda of the teachers’ unions, this November’s election may shape up to be the ultimate school choice decision for parents.

SOURCE 






Adelaide universities to fly in international students in Australian-first coronavirus-busting trial

South Australian universities are poised to fly in 300 students from Singapore in a national-first pilot program aimed at reviving the $2bn education economy.

In a coup for the state’s tertiary sector, SA has trumped interstate bids to spearhead the return of foreign students stranded when Australia’s borders closed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The flight from Singapore for South-East Asian students is expected to arrive in Adelaide in early September, in a test run for a larger-scale return nationally.

It is understood the final-year students will follow a strict hotel quarantine regime, paid for by universities and mirroring that in place for repatriated Australians.

Premier Steven Marshall said SA’s proposal had met the Federal Government’s stringent health and safety requirements and logistics were being finalised.

“We are looking forward to welcoming back students from overseas through this much-needed pilot program. International students are an important part of our community, adding to our state’s vibrancy and multiculturalism,” he told the Sunday Mail.

“South Australia’s handling of COVID-19 has put us in the ideal position to be a first-mover in bringing back international students.”

Plans to bring up to 2400 international students back to SA were revealed in early July but then swiftly derailed by Victoria’s disastrous COVID-19 outbreak that exploded that month. The NT and ACT also had proposals for pilot student entry.

Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Simon Birmingham said the pilot was an important first step in rebuilding Australia’s crucial $39bn education sector.

“International education is a huge export earner for Australia, supports thousands of jobs right here in SA and getting the sector going again will be vital to our ultimate economic recovery,” Senator Birmingham said.

The SA pilot is considered a major first step to demonstrate universities can safely manage the reintroduction of overseas students without igniting a coronavirus outbreak, giving them an advantage in fierce international competition.

Extensive quarantine measures are expected to include ensuring the arriving students are channelled through a separate area at Adelaide Airport so they do not interact with the general public.

Hotel quarantine also was used for the 94 close contacts of the now-contained COVID-19 cluster linked to Thebarton Senior College.

Before the Victorian second wave, authorities were planning to return to SA more than a third of the 6757 students stranded overseas after borders closed in March. They were to have arrived in three groups, depending on the success of the pilot program to return 800 students.

SA’s public universities, which support 8500 direct jobs, are facing a financial hole of hundreds of millions of dollars because of the coronavirus pandemic and loss of foreign student revenue.

Adelaide hosted more than 44,000 students from 130 countries and the sector was worth $2bn annually.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas said borders were the first line of defence against COVID-19 while the pandemic raged overseas and interstate, “so any decision to allow international students to come to Adelaide must be based on the expert health advice and a careful risk assessment”.

Fewer than 10 people arriving in SA in June travelled on an international student visa, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on Friday, compared with 1740 in the same month last year – a decrease of almost 100 per cent.

SOURCE