I know what the American pediatrician asssociation said about social well-being and schooling. I know what some sociologists have said about a “lost generation” when schools close. I also know that you cannot hold these conflicting interests during a pandemic. https://twitter.com/newday/status/1285532643745050624

Every profession is hitting the ball with the bat that it has. Perversely, expertise is both a risk & a balm during crisis. A single profession’s perspective can not grasp the scale & complexity of a compulsory social institution where the risk is this unknown & negative trending

Like colleges, K-12 schools need a supra-institutional order to save itself. The state and local incentives to open are just too great. And the risk is larger than that level of institution can scope because that’s not what they are organized to do.

In the U.S. that’s Congress and the military. Those are the only entities that can force a set of incentives to make school orgs to scale their response. It is absolutely inane to open schools. Period. Loss of sociability for kids is sad and yet it will not kill them.

Going to school may kill some kids, will undoubtedly kill some adults. That is preventable. Anything else that either narrows the function of school to one interest — kids well-being or parents economic well-being — is leaving out other crucial dimensions. School is a workplace.

And workers need solidarity, even if they aren’t in unions.