Friday, July 17, 2020

Schools are the Battlefield


I saw this in family law practice, where parents who were fighting over who was the worst party in the marriage made the children the battlefield.  Every. Time.  Even when divorce was "no fault" and the only real issues were property division (I practiced in Texas, it's a community property state.  By default, each party has an undivided one-half interest in all property owned by them, or either party.  And custody and child support are pretty much set by statute.  Even the amounts per child are seldom fought about.  But the emotional war of divorce was not fought with the tools of reason provided by the law.)

We're still fighting over the children, who have no voice in the matter.  Neither do the teachers, though they can organize and march, as some did on the Texas Education Agency in Austin, this week.  Did it make a difference?  Were they even noticed?  Nah.

Trump did this; make no mistake about that
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Schools have been working since spring to decide what to do in the fall.  My college employer had it easier than public schools, but they had made plans through the fall semester before the spring semester ended.  Now Trump has bigfooted the issue for his own political purposes, and he's roping the GOP Senate in to help him (God knows why.  I just hope Cornyn ties himself to the mast of this sinking ship, it will make things easier for M.J. Hegar, his Democratic opponent).  Schools are paying no attention to him, so Trump is going to demand their attention by cutting Covid-19 funds to schools who need it.  This is a winning strategy?  No, but it will hurt the teachers and the children long before the voters can hurt Trump and the GOP.


And in the state where we're being told the schools must open and nothing but the bars must shut down:

It's that ol' debbil immigration!  Well, and the invisible people who make our society work so we don't have to:

Community leaders say the surge is not a surprise, given that Hispanic residents are more likely than others to work many jobs that can’t be done from home — and many that were deemed “essential” even when stay-home orders were in effect.

“Many of these undocumented workers, they’re front-line, essential workers, working in construction, in bars, as cooks and dishwashers,” said Houston City Councilman Robert Gallegos. “Our city as a whole is less safe when our undocumented neighbors are too afraid to get tested or seek medical help when they most need it.”

County Judge Lina Hidalgo this week echoed that.

“There should be no surprise that our minority community is disproportionately impacted,” she said. “Many of these folks are the folks that call my office saying that their supervisor is making them work when they’re sick, that their supervisor is keeping the business open when they know it should be closed, that they’re not taking adequate precautions in the workplace as they should.”

Not unlike school teachers, in fact.

That reminds me of our blog motto for the duration:

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