Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

apple.news/ATn32-YCHSfqX93oArCDB_Q

A Politico article yesterday reported on the results of a recent survey that will not make the President happy. In order to “open the economy” and “get thing back to normal” the President and his GOP allied know that public schools will have to reopen AND operate as they always did. The recent national survey taken days ago shows little public support for that idea, and my guess is that support will diminish once the cost for reopening is taken into account. An excerpt from the article gives a sense of the logistical and financial challenge;

All schools face a fundamental problem: Restarting classes isn’t as easy as calling students back to campus and ringing the morning bell.

In Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools officials estimate the system could spend more than $6 million on masks and thermometers — plus extra nurses, custodians and cleaning supplies when classes resume. Social distancing would shrink classroom sizes in Washington, D.C.’s affluent suburbs to 12 students or fewer, said Fairfax County estimates. But assigning only one student to a school bus seat would require an increase of close to 780 buses and drivers.

The roughly 42% who want to reopen are unlikely to support the daunting costs that will be required and if the roughly 40% who oppose the opening keep their kids home, what happens next?

The only way to get through this dilemma is to offer a new model for public education for the same or lower cost…. and that model cannot replicate what WAS “normal”.