How Long Can Public Schools Operate This Way?

I don’t think I can do this in the fall. What I mean by this is managing my kids’ new distance learning. Every time a day is finished I think, “How long can I do this?”

Much has been said about how colleges will struggle and some will close as a result of COVID-19. America’s aging and declining in fertility. More schools chase after fewer students. The moment that schools try to charge for the premium college experience while delivering a CD-ROM-level education over the Internet, the weaker ones will fall apart.

But what about K–12 public schools? The social contract of a public school requires a certain kind of uniformity of expectations from teachers’ unions, students, and parents. But, under COVID-19, every term of that social contract seems up for grabs.

Some parents want the teachers to conduct a class over teleconferencing software for four hours a day, to give them time to work. Other parents resent even as little as half an hour of online instruction when their own work-from-home and child-minding schedules are being improvised daily.