Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
When schools shut down in March 2020, I sounded the alarm in the mainstream press, on substack, on social media, and at my own school board meetings. I used anyplatform and joined forces with groups of like-minded people to call attention to the crisis at hand. I was in full panic mode for almost two years.
I have lingering scars from being discounted when I was absolutely right. I still want an apology from both national and local leaders about what they did to American children, including my own. However, I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that the damage is continuing. Honestly, I thought that everybody would have caught up with academics by now, and that the social-emotional issues would have been repaired. Sadly, the issues from the prolonged school closure are lingering longer than anybody expected.
Research shows that academics and the social-emotional well-being of America’s young people has not bounced back from the pandemic lows. As students struggle in school, public schools are getting hit with new problems, including decreasing students and the evaporation of federal covid funds. Families that took their kids out of public schools during the pandemic have not returned. Buckle up, the new few years are going to be a bumpy ride.
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Commenting from a very different educational worldview.
In NZ, those families who left the school system to take up homeschooling, either during or after the pandemic, are now starting to return.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/511002/more-kids-stop-home-schooling-with-families-lasting-less-than-a-year
Giving point to the fact that homeschooling is *hard* and that an awful lot of families have given it a swing and a miss.
We do have a steady stream of parents opting out of the state school system, in favour of private schools (if you have a serious amount of money) or state-integrated special character schools (mostly Catholic ones) – which cost 1/20th the price, but give most of the educational benefits that the private ones do. But it’s not significantly greater than pre-Covid. Yet.
What we do have is a very persistent absenteeism problem. Where kids just don’t turn up at school. Or only turn up a couple of days a week. Mostly poor kids. Disproportionately kids from Maori or Pacific Island families.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/low-school-attendance-rates-disappointing
There are some systemic issues here (high rental mobility, meaning that poor families move often, so hard for kids to settle in school). But an awful lot of the issues cited as barriers are already overcome (free meals at school- both breakfast and lunch); school uniforms subsidised (or free) for kids who need it; primary schools mostly walking distance (except rural ones – which get free buses); cultural activities and events up the wazoo; even full Maori language immersion kura (unsurprisingly, not nearly as popular as the activists would have you believe)
My personal belief is that these parents have lost a lot of faith in all ‘government’ institutions following Covid (whether that is ‘fair’ is entirely a different argument – but it seems to be a reality). And that (certainly here in NZ) there are plenty of ‘carrot’ but no ‘stick’ incentives – to make parents decide that it’s actually less stressful to make little Johnny go to school, than it is to deal with the truancy officers, cuts to benefits and social welfare inspections – which result if he doesn’t.
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