One thing that irritates me about the school-opening conversation is that many seem to assume that there could possibly be a good outcome for kids & we just need to identify what it is. Once the pandemic hit, there was never going to be a good outcome.

Only less bad ones.

It's not developmentally normal for kids to be living largely in isolation. Nor is it developmentally desirable for them to be learning remotely. It is also not desirable for kids to be vectors of disease in their communities, get sick themselves, or for their relatives to die.

I'm pro-being-aggressive on school closures. That being said, pro-school closure people can also act like this is a simple argument. It's not. Upper-income kids w/out disabilities will prob bounce back eventually. For other kids, we're tragically exacerbating extant gaps.

Again: none of this was going to be easy once we had uncontrolled spread. There are kids in small countries like Tasmania that are happily attending school right now b/c community spread was aggressively smashed & remains quelled.

We didn't do that in this country.

Once we failed to control spread, we dealt a sledge-hammer to the development of our nation's children. I will also note that the same children who are most at risk of exacerbated achievement gaps are *also* most at risk of severe disease or having vulnerable family members.

The only solution once we had uncontrolled spread was to throw tons of money at families to support at-home learning (non-ideal, but better) & schools to support safe in-person learning (also non-ideal, but better).

We haven't done that either.

Anyway, I keep seeing people pop up w/ "Won't we think of the children?!" that are extremely one-sided. Nothing was going to be normal for children once our country failed to control the pandemic. That's a grim reality we have to face. Now time to advocate for more $ for families

Also, we don't just need to be thinking about more $ for families & schools *now*, but A LOT more money for schools in the future. There are ways to mitigate the damage we are doing to educationally vulnerable children. We need to identify these methods & *fund* them.

If you're thinking "what about the children?" now, I sure hope you are thinking of them in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. Because, if you care about kids & if you care about inequality, this is a longterm issue that can be addressed through a targeted focus on K-12, esp in low income areas

Just as an aside: there is a lot of focus in progressive circles on free/affordable college & student debt relief. Definitely worthy goals. But there already needed to be more focus on K-12 *if* you want to truly reduce inequality. The pandemic makes this even more urgent.

(I called Tasmania a "country" in this thread when it is a state of Australia. I called it that b/c the Tasmanians I know HATE being called part of Australia. But I should have just called it a "place")