New York students saw their return to school in person postponed again Thursday, amid a dispute between the mayor and the teachers’ unions.
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School supplies strewn on the sidewalk outside a school in Brooklyn, New York.
Jean-Cosme Delaloye
Notebooks are strewn on the sidewalk in front of the school in the heart of Brooklyn, New York. Pencils, tubes of glue, books and spreadsheets with children’s names also washed up on the pavement. The evening in early September when I was confronted with this sad spectacle, we were less than a week away from the start of the school year, which took place virtually on Wednesday for 1.1 million New York students.
This scene symbolizes the chaos surrounding back to school in person in New York City. Under pressure from teachers’ unions, Bill de Blasio, the unpopular and easily influenced mayor of New York, postponed Thursday for the second time the resumption of classes in schools under the pretext of wanting to give teachers more time to prepare and protect themselves against Covid-19. The pupils will therefore not find the school desks before the 1is October despite a Covid-19 infection rate of less than 1% in New York.
“The future of New York depends on our public schools”
Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York
“The future of New York depends on our public schools,” Bill de Blasio launched Thursday in an attempt to save face and justify his new backtracking. Sixteen days after announcing a first agreement with teachers’ unions that refuse in-person instruction during the pandemic, the mayor this week reached a second truce, the strength of which is just as questionable as the first.
New York City has adopted a hybrid education model that combines online and face-to-face instruction. Classes have been divided into several groups of about ten students who take turns doing two days of in-person schooling. The rest of the classes are held virtually.
This is where the problems start. Institutions do not have enough teachers to be able to guarantee teaching both in person and online. Schools also have to deal with some teachers who refuse to come back to teach or be filmed, and 40% of New York families who have opted for entirely distance education.
Union pressure
Added to this is pressure from the main teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, to prevent a return to school for students in person, already postponed for the first time from September 8 to 21. Michael Mulgrew, the boss of the union, took part in Bill de Blasio’s press conference on Thursday to congratulate the mayor whom he once again forced to bend and affirm: “We are protecting our schools, our families, our children and ourselves- even against this horrible situation created by the pandemic.”
These words hardly hide another reality: in the United States, where the influence of the unions has continued to melt, the return to school in New York has taken a political turn that goes beyond the health crisis. At the heart of this crucial battle for the future of the unions, we find exhausted parents and students out of school for more than six months who dream of resuming a semblance of normal life.
– New York is back to school
New York students saw their return to school in person postponed again Thursday, amid a dispute between the mayor and the teachers’ unions.
School supplies strewn on the sidewalk outside a school in Brooklyn, New York.
Jean-Cosme Delaloye
Notebooks are strewn on the sidewalk in front of the school in the heart of Brooklyn, New York. Pencils, tubes of glue, books and spreadsheets with children’s names also washed up on the pavement. The evening in early September when I was confronted with this sad spectacle, we were less than a week away from the start of the school year, which took place virtually on Wednesday for 1.1 million New York students.
This scene symbolizes the chaos surrounding back to school in person in New York City. Under pressure from teachers’ unions, Bill de Blasio, the unpopular and easily influenced mayor of New York, postponed Thursday for the second time the resumption of classes in schools under the pretext of wanting to give teachers more time to prepare and protect themselves against Covid-19. The pupils will therefore not find the school desks before the 1is October despite a Covid-19 infection rate of less than 1% in New York.
“The future of New York depends on our public schools,” Bill de Blasio launched Thursday in an attempt to save face and justify his new backtracking. Sixteen days after announcing a first agreement with teachers’ unions that refuse in-person instruction during the pandemic, the mayor this week reached a second truce, the strength of which is just as questionable as the first.
New York City has adopted a hybrid education model that combines online and face-to-face instruction. Classes have been divided into several groups of about ten students who take turns doing two days of in-person schooling. The rest of the classes are held virtually.
This is where the problems start. Institutions do not have enough teachers to be able to guarantee teaching both in person and online. Schools also have to deal with some teachers who refuse to come back to teach or be filmed, and 40% of New York families who have opted for entirely distance education.
Union pressure
Added to this is pressure from the main teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, to prevent a return to school for students in person, already postponed for the first time from September 8 to 21. Michael Mulgrew, the boss of the union, took part in Bill de Blasio’s press conference on Thursday to congratulate the mayor whom he once again forced to bend and affirm: “We are protecting our schools, our families, our children and ourselves- even against this horrible situation created by the pandemic.”
These words hardly hide another reality: in the United States, where the influence of the unions has continued to melt, the return to school in New York has taken a political turn that goes beyond the health crisis. At the heart of this crucial battle for the future of the unions, we find exhausted parents and students out of school for more than six months who dream of resuming a semblance of normal life.