I said yesterday the economy can't open if the schools can't open. I don't know what the independent school districts in Texas will decide, or how much guidance they will get from state government (they are free to make their own choices, but parents will listen to the governor and demand compliance with whatever guidelines he proposes. Likely he won't really propose any, making things even murkier.) But this article points out the problems of returning kids to school AND making them "socially distance."In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both. - The New York Times https://t.co/fabspppL2y— Erica L. Green (@EricaLG) July 2, 2020
Most classrooms run at capacity. The only way to reduce that capacity is to reduce the number of students in the classroom. The only way to do that is to stagger days the children are in the classroom, and the only way to do that is to have children attend on a college-type schedule (MWF, or TTh). But parents who work need their children in school 5 days a week, and if two schools (a high school and a middle school, for example) have children from one family staggered on different days, that could mean one child is home every day; just a different child. How many parents can stay home from work for their children?
Treasury Secretary @stevenmnuchin1 says schools will be able to open safely. Is he not aware that school districts are already announcing they are providing distancing learning in the fall?— Anita Kumar (@anitakumar01) July 2, 2020
A) Why is the Treasury Secretary of the United States announcing this?
B) Why is there any presumption he has any idea what he's talking about?
The staggering incompetence of government is beginning to show at all levels. Some of this is just a situation we've never had to cope with, and so never planned for. But a President insisting it will all just "disappear" is a President completely overwhelmed by circumstances and absolutely incapable of functioning in the office.
The fish still rots from the head. But the rot is reaching all the way down to the kitchen table.
I asked my sister who is theoretically going into her last year of teaching before she retires what her colleagues are saying about the schools being open in the fall. It's insane. The official word is that they're opening as scheduled (though no one believes it) that they will be responsible for all of the online work and, as it stands now, teaching in the classroom, despite the dangers, with their own children very likely at home unsupervised, that parents can opt in or out of the classroom at any time, she went on for quite a while. It's not going to work. By late August, I'll bet they've admitted it's not opening. She teaches in New Hampshire which has one of the Republican-fascist grifter Sununu clan as governor, again. He's been having the state lie about things.
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