Children, Classrooms, and Coronavirus

President Joe Biden has recently drawn ire from GOP lawmakers for lagging behind his stated ...

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President Joe Biden has recently drawn ire from GOP lawmakers for lagging behind his stated goal of getting K-12 children back into the classroom for in-person instruction. Liesl Hickey, a partner at Ascent Media and co-founder of N2 America, joins the show to chat with Sarah and Steve about teachers unions, remote learning’s effect on student well-being, and whether the NRSC will play a bigger role in GOP primaries during the next election cycle.

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Chris L

    I am late to this podcast and to these comments. I will begin by admitting that I haven't read the other comments yet.

    UNIONS & SCHOOL ADMINISTRATIONS SHOULD SHARE THE BLAME FOR POORLY DONE SCHOOL OPENING

    I'm a MA public school teacher. We were sent home on a Thursday in mid March of 2020 because of COVID. We were expressly told by the administration not to speak with our students or respond to any questions. We were told not to answer student or parent questions about grades or school plans via email. The school administration was silent for nearly 3 weeks. The teacher were being paid to do nothing. Parents began to complete. From nearly the moment the school was shut down, our local union chapter asked to begin working with the administration to plan and begin working towards resuming education. The union was rejected several times. Finally, at a school committee meeting, the school board blamed the union for stonewalling any progress towards resuming education. The school administration did not correct them.

    In the three weeks that our school was closed last spring, the local union was communicative and worked to bring together the teachers, the administration, and the community for the good of teaching and learning. For that, they were blamed and scapegoated.

    I'm not suggesting that my story is indicative of other schools. There are many times that I have disagreed with my state union's demands relating to reopening. In my case, the union took blame that was not deserved. Even to this day, the union has been asking the administration to help with planning for next year. The administration has been continuing to brush off the suggestion. I have seen very little strategic planning from my school's administrative. They have shown very little desire to work collaboratively with the teachers for the good of the school. As a professional, it has been enormously frustrating. Our school has an excellent reputation for being a great school for students. This experience has not reflected well on that reputation.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Chris L

      (I should have proofread more carefully. Sorry for the typos, etc)

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  2. Evan

    Seems to me that Haley's positioning with "Trump changed" is less about saving face for herself and more about voicing what so many reluctant Trump voters felt on Jan 6th. This message is not particularly ingenuous from Haley, but it is a good call politically if you want to appeal to those disillusioned voters who don't like being told what Jonah has been saying for years "the man's bonkers and can't be trusted!" It is easier for a disillusioned Trump voter to believe that things fundamentally changed than that they had been hoodwinked.

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  3. Lwj

    I am kind of surprised as I expect more thoroughness here. I started teaching in 1986 and have mostly taught urban poor. I am diabetic. I am not union. I fought to get my refugees kids into the library so they would have access and I came in and monitored them so I am no keep ‘em at home elementary teacher. That said, we are in now. 1/3 of the parents did not want to so we are zooming and in person. After the first 8 days open 4 schools were shut down for cases and lack of staffing. We have few non teaching staff and no substitutes. My beloved kiddos can’t keep a mask on so my hubby and I had to pay 400 dollars to get an air purifier for my room. It is winter so even recess is inside. I am exhausted and depressed something that doesn’t happen to me often as I love my job. Meanwhile the restaurants etc are at 50 capacity and wrestling(!) is still happening as a school sport. Please do a better job on talking about this issue. My greatest hope is that vaccines, if I could ever get one, will make this convo moot.

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    Marian Cates

    Small request: can you please remove "Coming January 2020"?

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    Michael

    I'm a public high school teacher in southern Orange County, CA. My school district has been open for in-person instruction since October, due to overwhelming community demand. Oddly, actual student attendance has been far below the demand expressed prior to opening. Five months in, we're down to about 15% of our student population physically on campus each day, while we are set up to accommodate significantly more than that with all the safety & distance guidelines in place. There are probably a few contributing reasons, among them the lack of student activities (dances, athletic events, lunch-time competitions) and limits on how they can socialize during breaks. Teaching simultaneously on Zoom and in the room and behind a plexi window keeps me stationary, while students in class can't do the small-group work that combines learning with interpersonal chit-chat. And of course, the students need to stay masked up all day, which is not popular in this area. What we need to recognize, then, is that even once schools reopen more fully, a lot of the safety guidelines will still have an impact on student comfort and enjoyment of the school day. The physical and virtual barriers will not quickly come down just because the doors reopen, as much as we all would prefer that. I'm definitely not in favor of unions stalling the reopening process, though, and there are measures that would allow teachers to work in protected environments, still teaching virtually while students are on campus.

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  6. Shaybult

    I'm sorry to say this was a really disappointing episode of The Dispatch podcast. You brought on a political operative to talk about school openings - how about an expert instead? I'm not really interested in what some random politico has to say on the topic - despite her being an old friend of Sarah's. I actually agree with her primary point - that schools need to reopen - but she doesn't have any particular expertise in the area, so I didn't find much value in her opinions and explanations.

    And once the conversation turned to current considerations and issues in the Republican party, she was just full of platitudes and very few specifics. Very disappointing - I kept listening because usually this is a great podcast and I kept thinking it would get better... but it never did.

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    Angie

    Ok, guys, this really felt like a political ad for Republicans to me, and I think she waffled on a lot of good questions you both asked, and has a narrow point of view here, she speaks as if she is speaking for all Americans all across the country and she obviously isn't...

    But, thanks for your efforts as always

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    Rajeev

    Colorado jumped up their teachers to be vaccinated after the initial 70+ & healthcare workers. It seems like it's a small enough number that it's better just to do that and eliminate any legitimate fear and union bargaining position. Nobody wants schools closed or operating one day a week. But unfortunately if schools have rules that Covid cases shut down the school it's not gonna be much better till vaccines are mass distributed. I've seen schools try to open and then constantly close under the guidelines. No great solutions there.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Thanks much, this was great. I think many of the comments, and some of Steve’s questions, ignore some important facts, asking us to look at schools totally differently from the rest of society.

    -the best science so far tells us schools are a relatively low (not “no”, but low) risk environment for covid; anecdotes about exceptions don’t reverse this fact, but union (and other) lies grossly exaggerating the risks frighten teachers, parents, and kids and seek to justify a special risk analysis just for schools.

    -many workplaces properly seek to increase safety through spacing, masks, etc. but ONLY with unionized teachers (again, in a relatively low risk environment) are safety improvements treated as DEMANDS, with closing schools the leverage. Look at all the other workers (in relatively higher covid risk environments) who never closed their workplaces down for a day to demand safety measures.

    - teachers unions continue to demand priority vaccinations to lower their risk or they will refuse to work, even though the science tells us that teachers (except older ones and those with major illnesses) are at less risk than the elderly and those who must work in environments with more spread. I hope teachers and everyone gets vaccinated soon, but vaccinations are no excuse to close schools.

    -teachers unions have become so extreme in some major cities (EG San Francisco and Chicago) that even totally democratic local governments are confronting them legally to force schools open, even if sometimes “open” means 1 day a week or with proctors so teachers can remain at home.

    Good and smart people can differ over which exact safety conditions are desirable in schools, with differences allowed for the local covid levels. None of us want to make teachers or kids sick. The issue is that one specific interest group wants to impose its (often changing) extreme demands on society, using closures as the leverage. Let’s support our teachers (several in my family) and kids, but without letting this one interest group hold us hostage. The unions are not qualified or entitled to decide what is safe enough for their members to work teaching our kids in person.

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    1. CrowdA

      Kevin, I think you make good points. My issue, and I think the issue of other people who have commented, is that the guest (can’t remember her name) didn’t. Her responses sounded much more like superficial sound bites in support of a specific political party than thoughtful insight on a complex, historic issue. It’s exactly what I would expect from CNN or Fox, but I think a lot of us have gotten used to a higher caliber of discussion at the Dispatch.

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        Kevin Johnson

        Thanks. We can agree to disagree, agreeably. I found her logical and mostly correct, if perhaps impatient given how long this scandal has gone on. And it only gets worse. In the press conference announcing the release of the new cdc guidelines for opening schools, officials admitted that the guidelines were the result of both science AND the views and “lived experiences” of “stakeholders.” In other words, they didn’t follow the science and issued guidelines much tougher than experts have called for and they did it for brazen political reasons...to please the teachers unions. The Department of Education official who spoke joined the Biden administration from the National Education Association. I predict the harm done to children and working parents from the needless closing of schools for over 300 days, disproportionally harming minorities and the poor, will come to be seen as one of the worst scandals of the crisis. Politics trumps science, and it is awful to watch. One could almost understand decent people putting up with this while the idiot-in-chief was in office, but now even that excuse is gone. Some things are wrong, even if the disgraced former potus opposed them. Thanks for commenting.

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  10. BrianMA

    I was pretty unimpressed with this podcast (and I normally love it!). It felt very partisan and I was not convinced that the guest had really studied all sides of the question. Steve had some good questions, but it felt like the guest dodged them. Much better discussion of this issue on Left, Right, and Center this week with guest Anya Kamenetz

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