There’s a now sort-of famous poll, I guess, from May (remember May?) that said 30 percent of parents are “very likely” to try homeschooling in the fall. Even more said they were considering it. And a lot of teachers are considering not returning to the classroom this year. Educators are trying to figure all of this out, and there are, as you might imagine a lot of moving parts involved in turned the routine into the crisis-driven responsive.
So we are talking homeschooling here with professor Robert Kunzman, a man who knows all about the research involved.
The rules vary from state-to-state and, in most, they are shockingly light.
That’s the third education podcast I’ve done on this program. I never worked an education beat. Politics and courts and hard news, sure, but never education. I’m not sure if this qualifies me for the job.
Anyway, education is going to be tricky this year. In Indiana the state department of education said “The local school corporations will figure it out.” While it probably seems like passing the buck, that does allow for different circumstances over vast geographical areas. And left local superintendents and county health officers to make the call.
It seems like most, here in this immediate area, will be doing some sort of hybrid program. Some days in school, some days out of school. I haven’t seen the particulars so I shouldn’t question the efficacy or the thought process behind it. It is, we can all agree, less than ideal, everywhere.
As I write this I just saw that in Dallas, Texas, some 153,000 students are now looking at a September start date. Kicking the can, says the superintendent there, was the backup plan. But as you get closer to launch dates, backups become realities.
And, in something that really matters to casual audiences, college football is facing similar problems. Today you saw the beginning of the end of the 2020 football season. The Big Ten dumped their non-conference schedule. It’s a nod to more flexibility for the games that matter, a teaser of even-more-cash-strapped-smaller-programs or court, or both. And it feels like frustra sperans that we’ll even get that far.
The smaller Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, representing 14 schools across six states, is cutting out the middleman, hope, and has canceled their fall athletic seasons. Sometimes the right decisions are the most difficult ones.
And in New Mexico the governing high school body has today canceled football and soccer for this fall.
More will follow, near and far.
The second half of this week already reminds me of the second half of that March week when they shut down the basketball tournaments. That was on a Thursday, too.
Solution: Eliminate Thursdays. Let us go directly to Fridays!
But not yet. First I get to Zoom with some of my students. You don’t pass up those rare summer visits.
