School is open — forever

With school starting back up this week in most districts, there is an interesting mix of storm clouds and bright sunshine off in the distance.

Big issues are facing our education system, both nationally and here in Southern Arizona. Administrators, teachers and students all have daunting challenges and unique opportunities.

The main problem this year (and probably for the next decade) will be playing catch-up with what was lost during the pandemic shutdown.

Politicians on the right will forever claim the schools never should have been shut down, that losing a few hundred thousand kids to COVID-19 would have been a reasonable price to pay for not falling behind academically. Those on the left will say we need more money for summer school and other programs to help kids catch up.

What we needed was a strong leader and a citizenry who put America ahead of their petty, pathetic personal wants. What we should have done (as a nation) after the schools opened back up was tell every kid in America that they were going back to the grade that they were in when the schools were shut down. There would be wailing and gnashing of teeth about having to graduate high school at 19 and parents having to have kids at home one more year.

It would have been a once-in-a-century thing and we should have had the national stones to have done it. Instead, we ended up with anti-vaxxers, mask cheaters and Ivermectin.

We wouldn’t have had kids missing out on the senior prom or the senior year of sports. Most importantly, we wouldn’t have had an entire generation with a giant hole in its academic progress.

I coach high school sports and I see two types of kids who actually break my heart. The first is the kid who, before the pandemic, was the honor roll hard charger. Acing hard classes, playing multiple sports, being in the clubs and student council. Today, that kid is a shrugger. She gets Bs and Cs, maybe plays one sport and isn’t particularly fired up about her future in general, or college in particular.

And then there’s the kid who wasn’t beaten down by the pandemic and still has the fire, but lacks the firepower. She’s a senior this year and is slated to take calculus, but she never really learned algebra II during the remote year. She can’t do great on the ACT because she wasn’t able to take AP government. Her teachers are scrambling to help other kids try to catch up and have no time to push her ahead.

Into that unholy mix, add these (some good, some horrible):

Cellphones

On a really positive note, school districts around the country are cracking down on cellphones in the classroom. It took our country 20 years and who knows how many deaths before lazy legislators finally started cracking down on selfish drivers talking on the phone.

There should have been a zero-tolerance policy on phones in the classroom in the first place. I could write 5,000 words right now just recounting the horror stories I have personally heard from teachers concerning phones in the classroom. Kids physically fighting a teacher over confiscation and middle-schoolers with burner phones to be able to stay on TikTok. Districts that have tried to attack the problem from a classroom disruption point have run into opposition from some parents. But now, some districts back east are attacking the situation for what it is — not a want or a need or even an obsession, but an addiction. Districts are approaching it as a mental health crisis and, so far, it’s standing up in court. Let’s hope it spreads westward.

Racism

One of the things that hasn’t spread westward (thankfully) is the racist nonsense Florida and a couple other states are putting in their textbooks. Florida recently adopted a textbook that said that slavery was a good thing because it taught some slaves certain skills that could be useful in case they were ever, you know, not a slave!

Vouchers

Arizona’s most-expensive socialist program, that of the taxpayer-funded vouchers that help rich parents send their rich kids to rich private schools, is taking a bite in the butt. A new public school in Phoenix will be opening this month, hoping to serve LGBTQ youth, many of whom have encountered problems at other schools. Boldly named the Queer Blended Learning Center, it will be funded by the voucher program.

Vouchers and charter schools are part of a malignant scam that has cost Arizona’s public schools hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade. It will be interesting to see if the voucher vultures step forward to defend the new school.

Curriculum questions

Parents showing up to school board meetings to shout about curriculum is almost a good thing. Of course, there is an easier way to make sure your kid gets a good education. Put down the beer, turn off the Netflix and read to or with your kid(s). Go to open house and meet their teachers.

If you can’t help your kid with physics, study government so you can help her with that. I’ll get you started. There are 27 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Apparently, 99% of all Americans (including virtually all of the school board screamers) don’t know that.

You’re welcome.

This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2023.