It's A Sign

 If you have visited God's country lately you may have noticed a couple of things. First, there are not many billboards, at least not compared to Georgia. And, a significant number of the billboards they have look a lot like this:

This Might Backfire

Much of what they say is true, well, at least the facts they lay out verify. But the messaging...that could use some work. At a glance, folks seeing this billboard might assume that school teachers in NC are not being paid, or not being paid enough. Relative to other states the pay is low. Relative. But relative to other states, outside of Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Asheville, the cost of living is relatively lower. It would also be interesting to compare median public school pay to median private school pay and compare those state-to-state. In this state, and presumably most, private school teachers' pay is less than public school. 

A verifiable claim is made regarding 2000 or more open teaching positions, so do private schools have a larger number of open positions? Relatively speaking. If NC is anything like GA, there are lots of "teaching" positions in the schoolhouse that do not include any in-class activities. Then there is a possibility, there as well as here, of the fox and the henhouse, as it is they who assign these classifications, and they who declare the staffing requirements. That is something they can, and do control. 

That's the quantitative story: more money; more teachers. Maybe. There is the qualitative story, which the casual reader, like the one doing 70 MPH on I-85, may, to be kind, infer: that more money means the current teachers on the payroll will do a better job, thereby creating better schools. Is this to say that the teachers they have are holding back and could do a better job? This also begs the questions of "what does better mean?" and "who defines better?" How do we, the taxpayer, audit for improvement, IE better, when the taxpayer doesn't even control these definitions? Or maybe the taxpayer does. DeKalb County Schools have been enduring declining enrollment, some caused by underlying demographic changes, but some attrition is due to parents, taxpayers, taking a different path. A powerful message given these parents still pay for public schools but are concerned enough to also pay for the other option, be it in money, or time, or both. 

DeKalb has the answer to our problem: hire a PR firm to run a campaign. Looks like NC has done the same. 

Save Our Schools?

You may have noticed some yard signs calling for support to "Save Dunwoody's Schools." Consider it done! As far as public schools go, these are not Dunwoody's schools, they are DeKalb County schools. Do we want to save those? If so, we have to save the system, and that means financially. You know, "the greater good" must prevail, and all that. Or must it? Well, if your children are zoned for Vandy, then the greater good begins with "Save Vandy!" Without that, there is no greater good, or perhaps no good at all. 

Will DCSD back down? 

No, they won't, because they can't. They are a stereotypical government. Spending only grows, so funding must as well. They are over the legal limit on millage rate so jacking that up is politically unpalatable. They're addicted to special sales taxes, already planning to spend the next round though it is yet to be voted into existence. The feds seem increasingly unlikely to up funding for this dumpster fire. The state is the remaining option but they have rules. Hard, fast rules. This means that schools like Vandy will not receive maximum state funding, so to acquire more revenue, Vandy, and others schools similarly sized, must go. And they will. 

And why should these schools in Dunwoody be retained, be supported, at the expense of others, and the system at large? These are minority voices in support of preserving this "neighborhood" school, without consideration of those who pay taxes and send their kids to compliant schools, or perhaps have no kids at all, maybe even ever, in public schools. Those folks have been lectured, ad nauseam, about their social obligation to pay taxes to support others' children because that creates a better society for all. Lots of take for very little give, so maybe it is time for an evening-up. 

How about you quit fighting only for your kids' school and fight for everyone's school system. 

Watch The Tantrums Begin

DeKalb County Schools are once again facing realities, not new realities, just the same old ones. Enrollment is declining. Some schools are at or above capacity but far more are under capacity. Even some "neighborhood schools" are under capacity, including the sacred cow: Vanderlyn. In the AJC's reporting on the issue, Vanderlyn was in the lede sentence. 

There are other forces at play. Those with power have decided that neighborhood schools belong in the previous millennium. State funding essentially dictates 950+ seat elementary schools. Many are hardly half that capacity with Vanderlyn being one. The fervent support for Vanderlyn is largely because it is a neighborhood school and consequently homes in that neighborhood carry a price premium. The property value issue is always raised when DCSD considers changes to Vanderlyn. 

Vanderlyn is now on the list for closure. 

After the shock, and it may already have dissipated, expect a rapid response from Team Vanderlyn to prevent any changes impacting that school. Expect them put away the "greater good" arguments they use discussing other issues. 

Homestead Season

We're entering tax season, income and property, as early in the year is your opportunity to investigate your homestead exemption options. The standard exemption you get for just living there, but there are many more. At least in DeKalb county. Some are for various service members, some are for disability, and some are age. The key element of some of these exemption classes is the homeowner is exempted from any and all school taxes, a vast majority of the total tax burden. 

Naturally, those adhering to the notion that more government makes a better world detest these exemptions claiming that everyone should pay because we all benefit from an educated population. There is an implicit, and false, assumption in this argument: that public schools, who are levying this tax, are actually educating all those kids. They address the fact that public schools are handing out diplomas to kids lacking the intellectual stamina to read all the way to the end of a sentence, by simply ignoring the fact. In their world, no fact that does not support their dogmatic beliefs simply does not exist. You can't argue with that. 

Beyond the standard exemption almost all the others are means tested, and for some olde fartes in daVille this inflicts the pain of envy, because in neighboring Cobb County, you simply age into it.

Combine these high taxes, the highest in the state, with bottom-of-the-barrel education outcomes and looming prospects of school redistricting and you must wonder about those homeowners who say they moved to Dunwoody for the schools. What were they thinking? Well, they weren't. That's the only reasonable explanation. Is the commute really that much worse? Hardly. The schools are better. Are the taxes higher? Nope. The schools are cheaper. Are the houses inferior? Not by a long shot. You don't have to jump through hoops for that homestead exemption. 

If you live here, fine. Just don't move here because the schools are so good and such a great deal. They're not.

Living With Inflation

First came Bidenomics. Now we look forward to T2 Tariffs. Looks like excessive inflation is about to be as normal as global warming. Except for a few folks. Who would that be? The 1 percenters? The Three Percenters? Nope, and nope. 

It is far worse: it is public schools.

That's right, the folks that brought you school closings and a generational setback for the children of America hold themselves above inflation, and you. Georgia passed a statewide law, by referendum approved by the public, to limit property appraisal increases to the rate of inflation. This means that local governments, including public schools, would see their revenue increases limited to the general rate of inflation. Your average working stiff is not guaranteed a raise to cover inflation, but the schools are. 

But that is not enough. The law offers taxing agencies a means to opt-out of these appraisal increase limits. They have to post public notice that they will do this which some might think would name and shame them. Some would be wrong as the folks running these systems have no shame. They are greed incarnate.

And it isn't as if their revenue is really capped at inflation. Not all properties are subjected to this limitation and those that are mark-to-market upon sale. But they will tolerate no restriction on their current or future revenue. They will claim they need the money to address the pandemic learning setbacks which were largely of their own making, and given free rein at the time they would have made it even worse. And no, they don't think you're stupid, they know you are. After all they probably educated you.

Just remember this the next time you vote for a school board member or an eSPLOST.

We're Doomed

No, this is not about George Washington's warning about political parties, though he was spot on, nor about Twain's observation about anti-semites, as he was only half-right. This is about a hesitant walk thru the valley of the shadow of death known as fecebook. It is, as you might assume, best to visit infrequently as this keeps your sensibilities intact, but when you do it is a terrifying place. Truly frightening were recent comments to a post regarding Decatur City Schools capping the lunch bar tab at three.

So much to unpack.

Far too many commenters had no clue that Decatur City Schools are not part of the DeKalb County School system and proceeded to rail against DeKalb Schools. Not that DeKalb isn't a festering cesspool of problems, but the issue at hand was a completely different school system. 

Others seemed offended that there was a limit on the bar tab, and to be clear, the tapped out students still got a lunch, it was just a cheese sandwich and not a cafeteria lunch. Very likely this is cheese from the government stockpile supporting dairy farmers, and really, who doesn't like a cheese sandwich? The lactose intolerant?

And it wouldn't be complete without someone trotting out the old trope about "no learning when hungry," parroting one of the agenda factory's favorite talking points. Worthy of note is that neither the commenter nor the factory take this to the next step of observing that sleepy, or sleeping, kids cannot learn, then using this to justify public boarding schools. One must wonder why these agendas pull up short.

And the most frightening part? These folks vote.

Education: Florida Leads The Way?

This isn't about recent assaults on the tenure system in Florida (and other states') universities. This is about a new alternative to the (failed) Common Core curriculum for K-12. At least one organization is holding this up as an example for others to follow as well as defending the Florida curriculum from assault from the Fordham Institute. 

Fordham, lilting to the left, takes issue with Florida's B.E.S.T. not because of pedagogical weakness or probable educational outcomes but because B.E.S.T. does not follow the current trends toward non-objectivity and P.C. content of questionable value. In effect, Florida attempts to institute a meritocracy that runs afoul of the participation-award philosophy dominating schools throughout the country. 

The Independent Institute performed their own evaluation of B.E.S.T. as well as addressing Fordham's issues head on. This article is well worth a read in the hopes that such a curriculum might take hold in Georgia.

Schoolhouse Brats

Parents know how enervating it can be to stay on top of children's propensity to misbehavior. Sometimes you're just too drained to intervene. But this leads to the same end as encouraging the bad behavior and at that point the only option is the nuclear option. Drastic, even harsh, action is required.

And so it is with public schools. The edu-industry has been running feral for some time, quite a while longer than the general population knew. They've been feeling their oats, pushing indoctrination while abandoning and weaponizing semantic machinations in their own defense. Parents have had enough.

Parents may be patsies but they're not (all) stupid. They know their school boards are ineffective at best, sometimes harmful other times even worse. When they're on their good behavior they are restricted to approving contracts that bureaucrats set before them, hiring a superintendent with a contract the board did not write and setting policy, whatever that is. And it just so happens these three are insufficient to discipline our out-of-control public education systems. 

Previously Quiet Moms have found a good stick to beat the lovely lady: money. By way of elected official who wield real power, manifest in money flowing from the state coffers to public school bureaucrats, parents have found a way to demonstrate to these wayward brats who is actually in charge. In charge of their children's education, in charge of their moral upbringing and in charge of the schoolhouse. The edu-industry hates this and "open" letters signed by superintendents have ensued. They are right to be alarmed as this is an existential threat. And a very real one. Might be time for them to behave and for many of them to begone.

So Why Do You Care?

Preemptive legislation is nothing new and we've seen it here in daVille with the recent ordinance outlawing party houses. Not that such a problem exists and even if it did given the city's reluctance to enforce any ordinance, especially quality of life ordinances, it would not and will not make a difference. Perhaps a diversion. Perhaps just political theater. 

It is happening at the state level as well with the proposed bill that would ban promulgation of divisive indoctrination in our schools. Really this should be as simple as requiring that all students read at grade level before any agenda driven programs are introduced. But both sides are engaging in semantic gymnastics. The leftist superintendent who signed an open letter against the bill they characterize as banning CRT. Yet they claim they are not teaching CRT and in fact there are no courses with CRT in the title or even the course description. But this IS a deceit and they know it. After all if they are NOT teaching CRT why do they care if there is a law banning it? They're not going to teach it anyway or are they?

The fact is that the tenets, the principles and the fundamental building blocks of CRT are driving curricula and the teaching of racial division. And this is happening in school systems across this state where an embarrassing number of students cannot read at grade level, lack skill in basic arithmetic and where over 16% don't continue to graduation.

Is there any doubt that public education needs a power-down reset?

Teaching From Aruba

Teachers are notoriously risk averse and this quality almost every move. In many places teachers belong to unions which are often at odds with the public they allege to serve and who definitely make payroll. In Chicago this toxic combination has the schools shutdown due to an ongoing pissing contest between the teachers' union and the mayor, both reliably left leaning. It seems the teachers want to work from some vacation hotspot whilst the mayor wants asses in classes.

Why the disconnect from what in other times would be two sides of the same coin?

Parents. Apparently these otherwise docile folk are quite riled up and while they cannot fire teachers (no one can) they can fire the mayor. And if they don't get the educational services they feel their children deserve they can, and will, find themselves a new mayor. A mayor that will take the bull by the horns and corral an out-of-control union. And what will that look like? Well, it won't be "teaching from the beach."

Pandemic Discovery

Despite the illness and death there has been a silver lining to the pandemic: we have, almost by force, confronted some harsh realities many had long chosen to ignore. We knew the city was designed to be of, by and for businesses but now they are much more open about it, revealing internal dissonance. Which winner will she pick? That might seem important until you recall that the city we thought we would get was always a myth about as real as the bodacious babe the old fart gets with each bottle of Viagra. You know it isn't real, don't you? 

So what is important? Well, we now know that as far as parents are concerned their children are important. The pandemic has burned away reliably opaque clouds of delusion as parents were forced to see what was being called "education." Not a pretty sight. Not only did parents realize they could see, they seem to have discovered there was quite a bit they needed to look into. The more they saw the less they liked and so they took and demanded action. The system, unaccustomed to scrutiny let alone criticism, pushed back declaring upset parents should be considered domestic terrorists. What is actually quite impressive is the handbook describing how the deflection techniques long used by teachers and principals can be leveraged in board meetings. Apparently some folks always held the opinion that parents should have no say in what their children were taught and were bold enough to say such things out loud. But not without consequence. This happened alongside CRT infused pedagogy and elimination of assessments and standards for social justice reasons. The latter revealed internal dissonance (much like we see with our head dwarf) with teachers at odds with admin. 

Now we know that DeKalb County Schools are not expecting a rebound in attendance and while some blame the pandemic these are the same people who've been immune to criticism until recently. Maybe the pandemic was just a catalyst.

Crisis Is The Fulcrum

Agenda is the lever.

And both were in full misuse in a recent opining from the AJC's fave left wingnut when he took his anti-conservative agenda and propped it on a recent school shooting to someone draw a twisted line, one that can only be straight in his mind, between parental desire for age-appropriate materials and practices and a reluctance on the part of Republicans to eviscerate a constitutionally enumerated, inalienable right. He pulled out all the Liberal Fascists' Propaganda Handbook memes. Hyperbolic "weapons of mass destruction." Dancing around "we ain't teaching CRT." 

Given a recent op-ed from the AJC exposing the incredibly poor performance of our schools at teaching reading, one might have thought the most obvious response to age-inappropriate material in schools would be: "no worries, they can't read it anyway." This would unravel as a brief glance at most classroom and libraries would reveal that words are few and pictures dominate. A concession to the fact that schools haven't been teaching reading for some time, that they are well aware of that fact and have adjusted accordingly.But...not the agenda.

But there are real issues here that deserve informed debate by rational, deliberative stakeholders. How has allegedly representative government schools disenfranchised parents, voters and taxpayers to the point that asserting their position as stakeholders results in vitriolic vilification? In the presence of this failure how do parents best care for their children and what are the socioeconomic consequences? What role should parents have in directing curricula, modalities and pedagogy? And yes, how do we enforce current laws prohibiting firearms from our schools. And why has law enforcement, at all levels abdicated their primary responsibility as well?

But all we get, and all we're are likely to get, is incessant harping from nags drunk on partisan agenda.

Reversing Osmosis

Over at the AJC, their bloggin' schools' apologist has had an epiphany: readin' don't just happen and it ain't like catchin' a cold. The decades old pedagogical orthodoxy was based on osmosis, the notion that by simply watching someone else read, or even having someone, particularly for a photo-op, read to you then magically those capabilities will transfer to you. As if our schools (which means teachers, admins, teachers of teachers, and yes, media apologists) have adopted a monkey-see-monkey-do approach. It has its advantages. For them. They offload responsibility for their inability to teach even basic reading skills, and NAEP has diligently reported these failures, onto parents claiming "there just ain't 'nuff readin' goin' on at home." And they still take credit for that third of students who are teacher-proof and will become proficient at reading, even though, as we all now know, this happens at home. 

The techniques (modalities?) that work require effort. On the part of the student who must actually spend significant time practicing and on the part of the teacher who must intercede, correcting any mistakes. These are the kind of draconian tactics Sister Mary Vattaveist  used back i the day. Effectiveness not withstanding, that just ain't the way learning gets done these days. Of course the NAEP reports that not much learning is going on anyway.

Maybe the problem is systemic lack of domain expertise. Given how long this failed pedagogy has been in effect it is very likely we have the illiterati "leading" in the classroom and school offices. How can someone who never encountered the teaching of reading in their own life ever figure out how to teach our children? Especially if they cannot even read about it.

Drugs In Schools

The school systems' drug of choice is taxes and DeKalb is no exception. If they distinguish themselves at all it is in that they all but refuse to tell anyone exactly what they intend to spend E-SPLOST funds on. The last time they did it was exposed as a lie and their little feelings were hurt. 

The last E-SPLOST was widely known as a waste and the best some could muster was "well, we hope some of the money gets to the classroom." The situation for those who think you can never dump enough money down the sinkhole that is public education has gotten much, much worse. Their best practices have been broadcast to dens and basements throughout the district and found horribly lacking. By parents. Parents who can no longer maintain the myth of "my child's education is one of the best." Parents who saw something that cannot be fixed by more money. 

Then our turbulent times blew open the kimono putting the politicization of public schools on full display. It isn't just the politics of racial divisiveness which they long ago integrated into their system, it is the growing chasm between their system and the parents who support it with their money and children. And the educators arrogantly assert they are in control and their political and industrial supporters are running interference on their behalf. They are saying, out loud, that parents should have no input on what their own children are taught or how they are educated.

A system that was intended to support the needs of our parents and children has been turned completely around. The refuse to teach the three R's, finding unaccountable indoctrination more to their liking. And their capabilities. Maybe what we actually need are public day cares, because our children sure as hell are not getting the education needed to compete in a global world.

It is time again to just say No! to E-SPLOST.

Personal Finance For Your Kids

For some time there have been efforts to inject Personal Finance into public schools and here's a shocker: it has met with some resistance. Until now the resistance has come from parents who distinguish themselves by actually wanting to raise their children rather than just have a baby and turn the child-rearing over to anyone else. These traditionalists  firmly believe that they, and they alone, are responsible for key aspects of their children's development and this includes things they consider very personal like money and well, personal finance. These naive parents also think they are sending their children to schools to learn, particularly core skills like reading, writing and arithmetic.

Then it went off the rails. 

Eyes were opened with the confluence of a pandemic that forced parents to see what was being served up in their children's school and wokeism (not wokeness, but wokeism), an evil corruption of something good (tolerance) with something very bad (hatred), threatening a complete takeover of school curricula. So in the prevailing context of 2+2=White Supremacy, and the willful innumeracy that entails, what the hell can personal finance even be? 

To put a positive spin on it, personal finance education may be teaching concepts. This isn't just because your child has been mathematically lobotomized by public schools but their teachers have been as well. So instead of learning how to use Quicken (or a ledger) to track a budget or a spreadsheet to determine total interest paid on a loan or compare buying, home or car, to leasing they may encounter buzz-word bingo. They may hear about dollar-cost-averaging. Maybe there will be discussion of investment returns vs inflation. Perhaps various self-funded retirement vehicles. These topics, associated with old-school personal finance, speak to a new taboo: individual responsibility.

So it really isn't likely to even be concepts. If we've learned anything during the pandemic it is that education did not abandon teaching and learning in favor of delivery of social services, but instead it was in favor of indoctrination. This will be no different and personal finance will be just more political proselytizing. Not making personal decisions based on your individual circumstances, but aligning your decisions with their dogma. 

If parents had a better foundation in personal finance themselves they would look at their property tax bill and we would soon be talking about public schools in the past tense.

Not Without A Fight

They will not go down easily. Not without a fight. Many parents have started their own "liberty libraries" to ensure their children have access to literature that has stood the test of time...to science...to mathematics. All those things no longer taught in schools. Things that have been replaced by divisive racist dogma promulgated by profiteering charlatans. 

Then it got serious. Organized. Focused on the real, underlying problem: the United States sucks at education. Free to Learn is not satisfied with merely expunging racist fascists from our classrooms, but all manner of political indoctrination. They also are working towards injecting learning and academic accomplishment in hopes that we might do better than come in 22nd internationally. They seem concerned that if we continue the status quo, let alone spiral down into a learning-free zone of indoctrination our children will not be able to compete against global rivals. 

So maybe The Woke have given rise to a great awakening. One can hope.

You Can't Handle The Truth

Or maybe they cannot handle you actually knowing the truth. While this has been going on for some time with Three Pee Uh-Oh, where governments outsource transparency, it has now happened with schools who have been pursuing woke CRT indoctrination. That's right. They've outsourced the very thing they are supposed to be experts in, curriculum development and education, to commercial third parties and now they hide behind an NDA because they refuse to take responsibility for their failures. 

But this may be the Education Industrial Complex's Operation Market Garden. With CRT bouncing around in the LibLabs of Ivory Tower Academia for over forty years it was only a matter of time before there was a Lab Leak. And it couldn't have happened at a better time with society reeling from the one-two punch of a fascist cancel culture and radical woke-ism. The Ivories had been creating a compliant, receptive host throughout education but now was the time to inject their lab-created virus.

Or was it? 

The other epidemic, CoVid-19, exposed parents to exactly what and how their children were being taught as the classroom was zoomed into their dens. And they were not happy. Many fled. Many will never return. But everyone is on high alert. Parents are hungry for answers; starving for transparency. This is particularly true when confronted with the reality that their schools long ago pivoted from education to indoctrination. 

But this is different. This is not the now-universal fiduciary incompetence or easily dismissed, or avoided, silliness infusing the school day. This is cultural genocide targeting their children awakening a horde of Tiger Parents. Angry parents who will not be deterred by an NDA, who see no defense for this indefensible assault on their children. Angry parents who will not be satisfied with transparency but who will demand accountability and fidelity to the original mission of education. 

Parents may not be woke enough for the radical left but they have awakened. They will work through the opacity of the NDA by first demanding a copy of the NDA itself and then every communication between school bureaucrats and outside organizations force feeding their children this racist indoctrination. Teachers and administrators will be ousted. Board members will be recalled and replaced. Demands for transparency will be incessant and scrutiny will remain intense. But trust will never be rebuilt without fundamental, permanent changes and if it isn't, the extreme left may see their most powerful platform, public schools, fall victim to a vigorous defund movement.

Fraidy Cat. Fraidy Cat.

Why are you so fraidy?

This is important because it seems as though teachers are never going to return to the classroom because they are afraid.  When it suited their narrative they claimed science was their leader but now science has abandoned them and they're simply scared witless. It isn't that schools drive courage out of teachers but that it attracts the most "risk averse" among us. As the author points out, teaching offers womb-like security. Fixed schedule. Consistent and predictable workload. Decent pay that never drops. Better benefits than most. Unmatched job security. Folks looking for an adrenaline rush become policemen or firemen. Except nowadays no one wants to be a policeman. 

Though there was mention of unions and the impact they may have it is unlikely that unions are any more responsible for teachers' fear than the schools where they work. They bring it with them, but it may be that fear that not only attracts them to teaching but to unionization. Teachers are quick to identify problems and equally quick to identify someone else to deal with them. Their risk aversion extends to a fear of failure so great they would rather cower in a corner than take action to solve a problem. 

And it is this all consuming fear that will keep teachers out of the classroom. Vaccine availability? Done and not enough. Mandatory vaccination? Still not enough. Science showing classrooms as low risk? Not to be believed. Gut and rebuild schools with new HVAC systems? Unknown, but an interesting thought exercise. Suppose we, as a society, are to make this enormous investment should we not ask: is this the best use of the money? Probably not. The pandemic has been eye-opening for parents and "virtualization" resulted in new ways for their children to learn. Rather than invest in restoration of a system that long ago abandoned teaching and learning perhaps money is better used to educate our children using the "modalities" that are just beginning to be explored due to the pandemic. Maybe the teachers are right and there are permanent changes. Maybe parents and taxpayers should show their courage and make certain that changes are made that benefit children's education because fear has not taken us to a good place.

Parent Like A Teacher

An Open Letter To My Children Regarding The Commencement Of Asynchronous Parenting. 

Sound familiar? Sorta like the ear-worm, schoolhouse rock song that has been on an endless loop for over a year? Or maybe it is intersectionality.  You know, yet another made-up word with so many syllables it must be really smart. In this case it is less about woke and more about the mashup of "quality time" and "virtual learning." Seriously, if it is good enough for the hired help isn't it about time their employers tried it at home?

When Failure Is Not An Option

In most cases, particularly a John Wayne movie, you gut it out, reach deep inside and get the job done. Do or die, there is no try. 

But another part of our life has taken a different view of "failure is not an option" and that would be public education. They long ago embraced "no failure" by dispensing with F's, and retention. Really, does anyone fail a course, or heaven forbid, a grade anymore? Not for some decades. In reaching this education nirvana they fully embraced the process of "when all else fails, lower our standards."

This was fine in before times of Woebegone where every parent believed their kid, their teachers and their schools were all above average. In those times grade inflation was blindly accepted while simultaneously never speaking its name. Until pandemic. Shutdowns. Re-openings. But not schools, at least not here in DeKalb. Why? Lots of reasons. Teachers, at least those most outspoken, seem to be of the mind that their paycheck, perhaps their job is guaranteed without regard to what they do or how well they do it. They are leveraging the "lower our standards" to insist that teaching from the basement is more than adequate, students are learning, even flourishing though some still admit that F2F is "better." The problem is that an effective ban on cameras in the classroom (who really wants a stakeholder parent to observe their child's class) has been replaced with a parent in the virtual classroom. The "adequacy" is being questioned. Furthermore, some parents work outside the home, many drive around seeing shops and restaurants open, private schools holding class and wonder why they are getting the shaft. 

But teachers are pushing back. In Chicago the union called a sick-out forcing re-negotiations on remote teachers. They are advancing the notion that schools, who issues the paychecks, are essential, but that teachers' presence at those schools is not. Unsurprisingly they expect, with each advance of political will to open schools, with each rollout of vaccine, with each scientific study to move the goalposts. They are even beginning to say, out loud, that there will be no F2F in the 2021-2022 school year, perhaps never. 

Some are fighting back. Broward County, where there is a real teachers' union, has issued back-to-work orders and won a battle in court to do just that. The media battle was less civilized. The district did a quick survey of social media, finding many "remote working" teachers posting beach-blanket-bingo parties, destination weddings, nights out on the town, all flouting CoVid protocols, while at the same time insisting the pandemic is just too out of control for a return-to-work. Here's the real kicker: these teachers accused the district of spying. That's right, you post something on public social media and someone sees it and holds it against you and all of a sudden that's spying. At least if you're a teacher living la vida loca. Turns out it was not spying, it was evidence that may well have won the day in court. 

Will the teachers prevail in their all-pay, no-work campaign? Probably not. The NYT op-eds are calling for kids and therefore teachers in the classroom. Immediately. Papa Joe, who you might expect to do whatever the teachers' unions (or any other union for that matter) tell him to do is actually calling for K-8 back on campus in the first 100 days of his administration. Closer to home parents and taxpayers have to be questioning the very existence of public schools. While you may take a dim opinion of teacher-remote classes even considering it little better than nothing, you really need to ask and answer: is it really that much less than DeKalb Schools in the before times?