H.G. Wells once said, “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” Closing our schools, out of fear of COVID-19, was just such a catastrophe.
As more and more fear of the coronavirus was spreading throughout March, schools started to close — indefinitely. And by the middle of March, half of America’s nearly 57 million elementary and secondary students had their daily and routine educational and social life turned upside down. Schools were closed, and, in short order, all of our nation’s children were furloughed.
It was perhaps understandable that at the beginning of the outbreak, with predictions of millions dead, we quickly and immediately put a pause on our nation’s schools. But as the evidence became clearer that children were far more affected by other and worse problems for them than the coronavirus, the schools should have opened up.
The closings have caused, and will cause, even more social damage for a great many of these children and their parents than the coronavirus ever would. All to protect children from a disease that will not directly affect them.
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