School Boards and Educational Policy Decision Makers (Karen Hussain)
Looking Deeper - 5 Facts Checked
When looking at the perspective source above, the claims within the source should be checked in order to gain a better understanding of them through research“And as things are exploding across the state right now, it's looking more and more likely that we will finish the school year with learning at home."
I found this claim to be the center point in my topic in that the notion that this pandemic is here to stay for longer than anyone anticipated created this uncertainty of how the progression of children's education would be affected. With this source dating back to March 27th, 2020 and it being roughly a month, this claim was fairly accurate and supported through many sites such as cdc.org in stating that schools would most likely end the school year learning at home. This is especially true in New York City, where the podcast was recorded, in that there have been way more cases of COVID-19 in New York than most other states.
“Obviously, the digital divide, which is students that have technology at home and those that don't, is a huge challenge”
There have been many obstacles that would hinder the ability for all children with the shift to online classes and being able to reach out to school administrations. One of those mentioned in the podcast is the digital divide within many communities that don’t have access to WiFi or devices that connect us. This has been acknowledged according to hrw.org and there have been efforts to lessen the gap with waiving late payments as well as hotspots and many more accommodations.
"But if you shut down the schools, then these are children of first responders, of health care workers, of sanitation workers. So it has a significant impact on the city if those people don't have somewhere for their children to be. So it was a very weighty decision."
I found this claim very interesting because i never considered what would come to children of essential workers and how they would be supervised and taken care of. Unicef.org addresses this with considering a childcare referral system as well as asking for flexible work hours for their children. With large cities like New York City that have a large amount of students in the education system I found this to be a weighty drawback and complication with this pandemic.
“The people that know their students the best are their teachers, so the teachers are absolutely on call to make sure that they know where their students are”
This claim interested me due to the idea that teachers and school administration play a staple role in the development of children and how that could be affected. Acknowledged by globalpartnership.org, their quick transition into digital schooling has helped and given access to ensuring that children are protected and safe at these times.
But we're being driven by the circumstances and the advice of our health commissioner and the state”
This claim acknowledges that the decisions made towards education is dependent on many different variables and that include the cooperation of the state and health commissioners. This is further extrapolated in ncsl.org with the mentioning of school meals, accountability, and state legislation.
Perspective Analysis
With the still progressing spread of coronavirus there has been concerns from people all over the world and a part of these people are the ones implementing education to children. With so many changes to everyday occurrences such as going outside and interacting with people has made policy decision makers rethink and reevaluate how to go about the rest of the school year and keeping kids on track. To understand their views and look at their perspective I found a podcast featuring the chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education, a city which has been severely plagued by the virus more significantly than others, Richard Carranza. Carranza speaks about the importance of continuing education for all students and having all students equally cared for while also taking into account the guidance from the mayor as well as health officials and epidemiologists so that no student gets left behind and/or are unprepared for the following years of school and life (Inskeep 2020).Carranza mentions in the podcast some hurdles the education department has to face in terms of a digital divide within students with a majority of them having socioeconomic status and being impacted the most from this virus. In order to combat the digital divide in education during these perilous times they have provided devices to help them stay connected and receive their education similarly to the rest of the students. There has been more of a shift in recognizing and valuing the impact of teachers and them being able to check in on student’s health-wise and education-wise. The audience that Carranza speaks to and for are not only the citizens of New York city but also to anyone impacted by the coronavirus through education through this podcast being available and posted on npr and other podcast platforms.
To make decisions that affect the education of around a million kids in New York City as well as other cities and their choices around the world they could greatly impact the future of education negatively if making wrong decisions. That’s why facts matter to them greatly in order to progress accordingly. The information that they find significant is following and getting consultation of officials in health and epidemiology and trusting their input as well as how their mayors are addressing the issue (whether they have lockdowns or more severe measures to ensure safety to the public) in order to make decisions. Along with that is the immense information given online through outlets such as the cdc. Talks with a school board member AJ Crabill reveals that it is “critical to step back and let the educational first responders (superintendents, principals, and teachers) manage the pandemic.” as well as being more flexible toward superintendents to manage their emergencies as well (Hess 2020) The level of contagion that this disease has on not only kids but also the whole population is something that deeply matters to the education system so as to not risk the public health of the people and having precautions when dealing with attending classes. Carranza, in the podcast, also mentions his distrust in mainstream media outlets that may skew the news such as, in this example, the New York Post.
The field of education has been impacted by crisis like this historically and offers much insight on how to proceed such as natural disasters such as a 2010 flood in Pakistan which disrupted the education of 20 million children. The focus on the continuation of education through emergencies led to global funds for this and standards developed by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies and respond to crisis. Rebecca Winthrop, who wrote about the history of crisis’ and how past mistakes led to lessons and practices in case something like this pandemic happened. She is a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and for the Global Economy and Development who makes it apparent that there must be structure and that the world has dealt with crisis’ historically and have survived education-wise (Winthrop 2020). So, when school boards make policy decisions, they have and should look towards comparing procedures that should be emulated as well as avoided historically in order to successfully persevere.
This perspective is important to include due to the huge number of children that would be impacted in the following months due to policies and decisions made by people in education departments and boards as well as accounting for those who have a variety of different backgrounds and situations because of this virus.
References
Hess, R. (April 20, 2020) How School Boards Should Respond to Coronavirus. Education Week. https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2020/04/how_school_boards_should_respond_to_coronavirus.htmlThis is a primary source that interviews a national school board guru and director of governance at the Council of the Great City Schools. the perspective can be seen through the responses given to the questions asked of him. the main purpose of this source is to confront the situation of education during the pandemic and giving the reader/audience more of an insight through the lens of a professional on how things will be dealt with. the key ideas mentioned in this source is the response of school boards during these times as well as the avenues that boards across the country would have to take in order to ensure children their education.
Inskeep, S. (March 31, 2020) COVID-19 Affects New York City Schools, Nation's Largest District. npr. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/822411665
This is a primary source that is an interview with the chancellor of New York City schools. You can tell the perspective of this through the responses given by the chancellor and how the crisis is trying to be managed throughout the district with the increasing emergence of the virus in New York. The main purpose of this source is to give an insight to the interworks of how the people in charge of schools are trying to handle the outbreak and also thinking about their education as well as their health. The key ideas mentioned in this interview are the difficulties of beginning to move towards online classes due to the "digital divide" of the students. the priority of teachers checking in on where students are educationally and stability wise, as well as trying to follow the advice of many commissioners and health care professionals while not cutting off the children's source for knowledge.
Winthrop, R. (March 31, 2020) COVID-19 and school closures: What can countries learn from past emergencies?. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/covid-19-and-school-closures-what-can-countries-learn-from-past-emergencies/
Rebecca Winthrop wrote this source and she is a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and for the Global Economy and Development. They use the method of history to provide information about school closures in countries. Despite these differences with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the education in emergencies community can offer lessons learned and good practices in almost any case where education is disrupted for a protracted period. the key ideas summarized in this source include the topics such as COVID-19 public health messages and training should be immediately deployed consistently through education activities, Mobilizing education networks to disseminate live saving public health messages, planning for school closures for long months and not just weeks, find ways that the immediate response activities can lay the foundation for reaching long-term goals.