America resorts to remote learning, against pupils’ interests

GIVEN THE way the fight had been proceeding, it ended in a whimper. On January 10th a stand-off between Chicago’s teachers’ union and its mayor, Lori Lightfoot, escalated to personal insults. Jesse Sharkey, the union’s president, called Ms Lightfoot “relentlessly stupid”. She responded by calling him a “privileged, clouted white guy”. Hours later, the teachers agreed to go back to work, bringing to an end a nearly weeklong strike over covid-19 safety fears. The city stuck to its terms, but agreed to increase testing and supply more KN95 masks.

Across America, more than 5,000 public schools, about 5% of the total, switched to remote learning for one or more days during the first week of January due to covid-19. It is a controversial call. The case for cancelling in-person learning was stronger early in the pandemic. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know,” says Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District in Texas, whose schools are now open for in-person learning. Without a vaccine and consistent mitigation measures, teachers and pupils were at risk. But prioritising health over education had many serious consequences.