COVID-19 Could Spur Privatization of Public-School Education

Note: Essay published originally on Medium, July 20, 2020. Click here.

When our children’s school district announced recently that it would start the year online, the decision ignited a flurry of social media posts and texts from parents. Amidst the messages of stress and anxiety, a wave of more focused posts stuck out. Many parents were proactively creating “pods” and making alternative schooling arrangements for their kids.

This pairing off had started even though schools had yet to announce what virtual schooling would look like. Despite, or perhaps because of, this uncertainty, some parents were seeking to hire tutors and even teachers for their kids, especially their young children. Their individual efforts are understandable. Lots of parents are worried about their kids’ education and simply cannot manage a new school year that looks like the end of last year, when virtual instruction required significant parental involvement. But let’s be clear about the danger of this moment: this is the privatization of public education. And the government is letting it happen.

Yes, many parents have chosen private school for their children in the past. And yes, many middle-class and wealthier parents have long hired private tutors for afterschool and weekend help. But this is different. It is not supplementary. Families with kids in public school are feeling the need to hire tutors or teachers and pay for the public school portion of the day. This is about guiding their kids through the regular 8 am to 2 pm school day. Imagine this playing out in person: it would be like having a first-grade class with 4 or 5 additional teachers in the room who will work only with selected students, while the majority of kids compete for the attention of one teacher.

We all know that the US education system is already deeply unequal with huge disparities in resources across neighborhoods. But now COVID-19 and the government’s inept response to it — the result of which is that US children won’t return to in-person schooling when their peers in other countries will — threaten to turn these gaps into chasms and to drop even more children by the wayside, including those in middle class families who weren’t thought to be at risk.

This privatization of the school day is not coming just from parents who seek any possible advantage for their child. Far more parents seem to be pursuing this option simply because they have no other choice if they are to keep their jobs. And yet many other parents simply cannot afford to pay for basic public education for their children.

Of course, no one can prohibit a parent from spending money on their children’s education (and generally speaking, that’s not a bad thing). But too many parents confront the impossible decision of either spending money they don’t have or accepting that their child will be left behind.

There is really only one way to stem the tide of this privatization: we have to ensure that virtual instruction is effective for kids and doesn’t overburden parents who need to work. That’s a tall order, especially given that most school districts are attempting to rework their curriculum with only a couple weeks of additional training and prep days for teachers. That leaves teachers, who for far too long have been asked to do more and more with fewer resources, in an impossible situation.

No, we can’t dump this on teachers, just as we can’t dump it on parents who desperately need to work.

Ultimately, responsibility lies with the federal government and state legislators. They failed to seize the opportunity in March and April when they had months to plan and prioritize children’s education. Now, the only way we will get through this pandemic with public school education still a public good is if federal and state policymakers immediately identify and invest the resources needed to ensure every child can develop to their full potential. Anything short of that deserves an F.

Supporting Families’ Efforts to Advance Children’s Rights and Well-being

Early childhood is widely recognized as a critical stage of development.  Yet it’s also a stage during which children receive relatively little focus in the public domain. Most children’s early years are spent in the home, largely beyond the reach of law which historically has sought to retain a public/private divide.  Yet waiting until children enter the public sphere (by starting school) before attending to children’s rights runs the risk of leaving millions of children at a disadvantage. This is not a call for government interference in the family, but rather a reminder of the state’s obligation to support children’s rights and well-being from birth.  And advancing children’s rights means supporting parents and families, so they can provide for their children and ensure their children’s full development. 

Supporting early childhood development means accounting for the interrelated and interdependent nature of rights. Not only does the realization of particular rights depend on the fulfillment of others—for example, children’s education rights depend, in part, on realization of their health rights—but the rights of certain individuals are tied to the rights of others. The rights of children and the rights of their parents are linked in this way.  Many other governments have acknowledged the indivisible nature of rights and adopted holistic responses to the challenges facing families.  Conditional cash transfer programs, which provide funding to families tied to conditions related to health and education, such as regular health care appointments for children and maintaining children’s enrollment in school, offer one example.

In many countries, conditional cash transfer program alleviate some of the financial pressure on low-income families to have their children work rather than attend school. By doing so, these programs help advance children’s health and education rights, while protecting kids from labor exploitation. At the same time, these payments can help bolster the family’s financial security, alleviating pressure on women in particular to pursue riskier employment, thereby supporting women’s labor rights. Brazil has arguably the most well-known program, Bolsa Família, which has provided assistance to millions of families.  With women constituting over 90% of the beneficiaries, the program has also had a positive impact on children, “increas[ing] school attendance and grade progression.”

Holistic approaches to the rights of children and their families make sense. One bill recently introduced in Congress advances this approach. Earlier this month, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Rep, Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) introduced the Child Care Access to Resources for Early-learning Act (Child C.A.R.E. Act) H.R. 4524/S. 2539.  The legislation would help guarantee affordable, high-quality child care for working families earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Guaranteeing access to high-quality child care would simultaneously help advance children’s development while alleviating employment and other economic pressures on working parents.

With sixty-five percent of children under 6 years old living either in families with both parents working or with a single parent working, quality child care is critical both to children and their parents.  This bill deserves support, as do other efforts to develop holistic programs that account for the rights of children and their families.

For more on the bill, click here.

Originally published at Human Rights at Home blog and also published at First Focus.