Hey Parents! Are you going to homeschool your kids next year?  Are you considering on-line school?  A recent poll from the American Federation of Children shows  40 percent of parents are more likely to pursue homeschooling or online school after COVID lockdowns end.

Chris Cargill is the Eastern Washington Director of the Washington Policy Center and he brought those result to the KIT Morning News today (6/7/21) as we talked about what parents consider to be better options for kids this fall.

Granted, the Coronavirus was something new so a spot-on-locked-in set of policies and procedures for schools to be able to safely deal with the virus had to "evolve", but the choppy and uncertain nature of that process has left a lot parents questioning the focus of the current system - is it based on kids needs or the wants of the teachers union.

Washington Policy Center Education Expert Liv Finne writes, "Schools have been closed for two months, and will remain closed through the end of the school year. Tests have been cancelled. Measure of student progress has practically ended.  In Seattle nearly all high school students are being given A’s, with a few getting Incompletes. Students say learning is not going well."

So do parents want to continue to a support a system gobbling up over half the state's annual budget money with little to no accountability during the pandemic?

Finne says IF schools do open this fall, no doubt a lot of time and effort will be devoted to keeping children separated from one another so she suggests expanding school choice such as family access to online public schools, public charter schools and private schools.

In her words, "These alternative schools have proven more capable under COVID because they do not need to seek the approval of 100 union stakeholders before teaching children.  Lawmakers should be helping families, not unions.....Lawmakers should also give families vouchers of $2,500 to spend on the education of their children, including on tutoring and private school tuition."

One lesson we all can learn from what the pandemic exposed is that many of our systems and approaches in the world of work can and should be improved, including education.

 

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