Stephan: My daughter is a middle-aged single mother herself, with an eight-year-old son, as well as the president of a large social services agency, so she has her own experiences, as well as listening to her therapists, and the agency's clients. In talking with my daughter, and reading and watching the news each day, what comes across to me is how a competent government, faced with something like Covid-19, would in anticipation of the coming months of pandemic have immediately begun to create and fund an educational system geared to the new social circumstances. Of course, we don't have a competent government, and as I read the news about how Trump and the Republican governors are pressing to reopen schools, the image that comes to me is that they think of America's schoolchildren as lab rats. They are perfectly willing to put them and their teachers, and their families at risk, just as they put the doctors, nurses, technicians, and orderlies at risk without making sure they had proper funding and equipment as they have labored to save the lives of the rest of us.
It is so callous, so unconscious, so ugly, and so obviously wrong-headed. And it is not as if clear signs of this were not obvious. In the last two weeks 97,000 American children and tested positive for coronavirus, and Israel, which opened its schools too early is facing a sudden spike of child cases and closing them back down.
A boy has his temperature checked as he receives a free COVID-19 test in South Los Angeles in July. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty
At least 97,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 in the final two weeks of July and there’s been an estimated 338,000 cases involving kids in the U.S. since the pandemic began, a new report finds.
Why it matters: The report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association comes as schools and day cares look to reopen in the U.S.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Friday that school districts in the state could resume in-person classes in the fall amid lower coronavirus transmission rates.
Some schools have already reopened for in-person learning in the South — including in Georgia, where authorities confirmed nine people had tested positive for the novel coronavirus at one school.
There have been many reports about the virus spreading through schools and summer camps, and evidence has begun to support the notion that children can play a key role in community transmission, Axios’ Caitlin Owens notes.
If there has ever been a time on our small planet to recognize that we are all in this life together this is it. Yet as I type this BBC World News reports that the worlds wealthy increased income/net worth by $595 billion and now control 45% of the world’s wealth during the pandemic.
Point being relating to the article is why won’t we engage other education professionals worldwide to develop best practices? Everyone is traveling unknown territory and would gain from the experiences of others.
Competent governance should be a no-brainer but when one looks around the world that seems the exception even in advanced, so called, countries with long established systems, say the UK as an example. Competent government to one would be authoritarian interference and control to another. Evading the bureaucrats in all areas of life particularly regarding taxes is normal in much of the world. With most world governance focused on protecting the moneyed classes it is hard to draw the line at the school house door.
Rev. Dean
on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 at 6:22 pm
No child should be exposed to the Coronavirus. There are ways to teach all children while they are staying home using tablets, computers of all kinds of course and will protect them and the teachers, too. This is the only good way I can see at this point in time. This virus kills anyone and everyone must be protected from it.
If there has ever been a time on our small planet to recognize that we are all in this life together this is it. Yet as I type this BBC World News reports that the worlds wealthy increased income/net worth by $595 billion and now control 45% of the world’s wealth during the pandemic.
Point being relating to the article is why won’t we engage other education professionals worldwide to develop best practices? Everyone is traveling unknown territory and would gain from the experiences of others.
Competent governance should be a no-brainer but when one looks around the world that seems the exception even in advanced, so called, countries with long established systems, say the UK as an example. Competent government to one would be authoritarian interference and control to another. Evading the bureaucrats in all areas of life particularly regarding taxes is normal in much of the world. With most world governance focused on protecting the moneyed classes it is hard to draw the line at the school house door.
No child should be exposed to the Coronavirus. There are ways to teach all children while they are staying home using tablets, computers of all kinds of course and will protect them and the teachers, too. This is the only good way I can see at this point in time. This virus kills anyone and everyone must be protected from it.