Open the Schools, Cut the Class Sizes, Hire More Teachers, and Use The Buildings All of The Day.

A proposal for re-opening the schools.

Photo by Feliphe Schiarollion Unsplash

While our present situation is bad, the pandemic also threatens the future as the efficacy of remote learning is questioned and loss of socialization skills come into focus. To ensure a better future we must re-open the schools.

The existing model of public schools has as much to do with outside influence and circumstance as our present situation. Only in the wholesale abandonment of child labor and the implementation of laws forbidding child labor did we adopt full-time, and in fact, compulsory public education. It was the exigency of idle children and parental daycare concerns as much as concern for a literate population that led to the model of a relatively large class taught by one teacher. It is clear, however, that we cannot, at this time, go back to this warehouse model of schools, with class sizes of up to 35, or more, per room… That is to say per teacher.

Here are some suggestions — indeed a paradigm shift — that we may employ to, first, safely and securely re-admit students and teachers and, secondly, perhaps even to improve public education.

First, cut the class sizes. Cut the class sizes dramatically… Cut them down to 5 students —…