You may remember a couple weeks ago I had a tweet about the four truths of the pandemic. Here is that tweet in essay form: https://twitter.com/L_willen/status/1326899194062311426

As I detail in the piece, there are no easy answers on schools and COVID because of four clear truths: https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-the-truth-about-returning-to-school-theres-no-easy-answer/

1) There is a total failure of leadership, especially from @BetsyDeVosED, but also from many state departments of ed. That failure is exacerbated by our wildly decentralized, 13,000-district, every-leader-for-herself approach to organizing schools.

2) There is hugely unequal desire to actually return to school in person, with those most impacted by the virus--Black, Latinx, and low-income families--the most resistant. So it's not clear even if/when we do reopen who will actually return.

3) If precautions are taken, the risks of in-person education seem lowish, especially for the kids. But the risks are not zero--some kids & some teachers will get sick, some will die. And we don't have a good way to compare the health effects to those for keeping schools closed.

4) We just cannot yet do online learning well. Parents who've returned their kids in person say quality is close to back to what it was pre-pandemic, but those still at home are closer to what it was in the spring (more on this next week at @BrookingsEd).