Americans have been neglecting public education for many decades. Buildings are old and have outdated ventilation systems. Classrooms are overcrowded. Teachers are under compensated. Now everyone’s talking about how important it is for kids to get back to school following or during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, but they still don’t want to fix those issues. Then they blame the teachers unions for refusing to let their members risk their lives because the community is too cheap to make school safe.
To End Virtual Instruction, End Virtual Funding
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Just like smoking, schools cannot be “made safe.” Ted wrote an excellent book about high school “My War With Brian.” Most of us also lived through similar high school experiences. The psychological trauma of high school can stay with you for years, maybe even decades. And with the new woke generation in charge (did Gen X get any time at all behind the wheel?), it’s just going to get worse. Example? I look forward, in about five years or so, to the reports that determine that pressuring students (even the “no pressure” pressure of asking students to “volunteer” the information in a roomful of peers) to provide their pronouns of choice is detrimental to them. (“Yeah. I didn’t want to say I felt like she/her sometimes because it was a very personal matter that I was still figuring out. But I felt cornered, too. And, of course, I couldn’t let my parents find out, so every day was just a frickin’ nightmare because despite all her/her talk about respect and boundaries, it was like I was being interrogated. Like people would know that I was lying, and even worse, that they knew I was lying because the truth could be used against me. Why couldn’t I just be left alone to go to school?”)