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no student is "behind" in a global pandemic.
the difference is that poor students/families, as always, are doing everything they can to stay safe while rich students/families have the resources to write WSJ op-eds and hand-wring about "learning loss" from their $1 million homes.
the difference is that poor students/families, as always, are doing everything they can to stay safe while rich students/families have the resources to write WSJ op-eds and hand-wring about "learning loss" from their $1 million homes.
and as much as I empathize with the pain and difficulty this is causing everybody - educators, students, families - I'm getting increasingly frustrated at the space that wealthy folks in less-vulnerable communities take up in discussions about education during COVID-19.
you open the NYT and you get to hear about the plight of poor Sandra, whose fencing season was cancelled and whose scholarship to Cornell is now in jeopardy. you hear that transmission rates are low. that teachers can safely be in a room in 14 students. that it's time to reopen.
but you don't hear from the kids juggling part-time jobs to pay rent because their parents were laid off. you don't hear about the kids who leave home once a month so they don't get their grandma sick. those kids struggle in silence. they don't make it to the Opinion page.
and if you looked at the statistics in working-class communities - say, like the ones in @MadeinHayward - you would know that many parents who don't have the resources wealthy (and white) parents do already know the risks better than anybody else. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14I62-X9ZQUde5g1F2m5Hw0XRIUD75L2v/view
but we hear the refrain in the news, like if we say it enough times it can become true: "reopening is safe!"
and they never bother to qualify: safe for whom? safe in what communities? the ones whose schools already had the resources to serve their kids to begin with?
and they never bother to qualify: safe for whom? safe in what communities? the ones whose schools already had the resources to serve their kids to begin with?
because I can tell you that what may be true for your kid up in Piedmont (or any affluent district) is NOT the reality that many of my students and families are facing right now.
so stop acting as if you're advocating for all of us. you're not.
so stop acting as if you're advocating for all of us. you're not.
my students (and their families) are hard workers. they're funny and persistent and kind and smart as fuck. they don't need your patronizing concern about "learning loss" - they need better-funded schools, better access to food and healthcare, and better resources for learning.
