> On the other hand, I was talking yesterday with a family member in another state where they have been doing online school almost since the first day
It's highly likely they aren't supposed to doing that. A lot of school districts around me decided to go their own way when the state didn't give specific directions after shutting every school down, mainly really rural ones interestingly enough. They are now having to back-peddle as the state steps in and exerts their authority over the districts. Similarly, in districts that simply postponed everything indefinitely (as they were supposed to), there were a number of individual teachers who tried to immediately start doing remote instruction with their kids and were quickly reprimanded by their district as soon as they were found out.
The reason is of course education equality. The state wants to make sure that every student is accounted for first. My wife is acutely aware of it since she has a non-zero number of students that lack home internet access. Students who many people would like to disregard in favor of the vast majority who do.
I feel like both sides are valid though...you can't simply not educate 99% of students because of the problems of the other 1%, but at the same time you need to make sure that 1% is able to get access too, because every child does matter.
> there were a number of individual teachers who tried to immediately start doing remote instruction with their kids and were quickly reprimanded by their district as soon as they were found out.
Not if you spend enough time chatting with teachers. From what I have heard, oftentimes they find themselves blocked by administrative busybodies at every turn, as a matter of course.
> From what I have heard, oftentimes they find themselves blocked by administrative busybodies at every turn, as a matter of course.
This doesn't seem to be a case of "administrative busybodies", though, there are material consequences to only educating the students with access to internet.
Under another president, we could be looking at turning internet into a public utility. Sadly, we are stuck with making do with this crisis the best we can.
It's highly likely they aren't supposed to doing that. A lot of school districts around me decided to go their own way when the state didn't give specific directions after shutting every school down, mainly really rural ones interestingly enough. They are now having to back-peddle as the state steps in and exerts their authority over the districts. Similarly, in districts that simply postponed everything indefinitely (as they were supposed to), there were a number of individual teachers who tried to immediately start doing remote instruction with their kids and were quickly reprimanded by their district as soon as they were found out.
The reason is of course education equality. The state wants to make sure that every student is accounted for first. My wife is acutely aware of it since she has a non-zero number of students that lack home internet access. Students who many people would like to disregard in favor of the vast majority who do.
I feel like both sides are valid though...you can't simply not educate 99% of students because of the problems of the other 1%, but at the same time you need to make sure that 1% is able to get access too, because every child does matter.