By Noah Shifter, Staff Writer
Schools across the country resemble ghost towns, devoid of students and teachers. Learning happens from home instead, where inequality asserts itself. Schools should reopen safely, starting with Governor Gavin Newsom prioritizing teachers in vaccine distribution.
Schools that switched to remote learning reported significant decreases in academic performance from last year.
According to the Brookings Institute, learning growth in math alone dropped almost 10% from 2019. Black and Latino students in particular shoulder heavier burdens of remote learning. They suffer from food insecurity, a lack of access to technology and a poverty rate more than double that of their white and Asian peers. They often depend on school books and devices, and remote learning removes such resources from the students who need them most.
California’s vaccine plan currently prioritizes senior citizens and healthcare workers. While this is justified, the plan should prioritize teachers next to allow them to safely return to the classroom.
According to the Harvard Medical School, students are more likely to be asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms than teachers, who should be the main focus for vaccination in an attempt to open schools. Since teachers are the ones at significant risk during in-person learning, schools can and should reopen once they are vaccinated.
Of course, many have valid concerns about long-term effects of COVID-19. However, while we must hypothesize the aftermath of having the virus, we know the negative educational effects of remote schooling and must act on them.
INFOGRAPHIC/ Nicolas Ngo
It’s easy to think that unvaccinated children should not return to school, as they can still spread COVID-19 to the vulnerable. However, waiting to vaccinate students would not reduce the spread. Vaccines strengthen an individual’s immunity without proven elimination of transmission. If we plan to reopen schools, waiting on student vaccinations is ineffective. While we wait for a concept of safety that does not exist, difficulty and inequality in learning will continue to plague students forced to learn from home.
Given the average Southern California class size of 29.9 students, vaccinating a teacher is 29.9 times more effective than any other vaccination. The academic decline by all students is intolerable since schools could reopen once teachers are vaccinated. Inequality in education, exacerbated by remote learning, is especially unacceptable.
Reopening schools will level the academic playing field for everyone to safely return to effective and fair in-person learning. By prioritizing teachers for vaccination, we prioritize our future.