Just in time for National School Choice Week, hundreds of parents in suburban Philadelphia’s Chester County have organized a movement challenging COVID-19 restrictions against in-person learning for K-12 students.
Pennsylvania’s pandemic-era education policies are fueling this revolt. Last April, in the early stages of the crisis, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all private and public schools closed for the duration of the 2019–2020 school year.
In the 2020–2021 school year that commenced last fall, school districts have gained some latitude to reopen their buildings, but these districts still face many excessive regulatory requirements. This is evident in Chester County, where parents must grapple with the reality of children attending classes in person no more than twice a week.
Students suffer the consequences of this trend. Earlier this month, after submitting “right to know” requests to the West Chester Area School District, parents obtained data that showed a significant increase in the number of students who are failing classes compared to the prior school year.
While almost 9% of all ninth grade students are now failing two or more classes, an increase of 850% over the 2019-2020 school year, the results are even more severe for minorities. According to the data, 26% of ninth grade minority students are currently failing two or more classes.
Beth Ann Rosica, a mother of two middle school-aged boys in the West Chester Area School District, sees “an epic fail at work at all levels of government.” Rosica faults the Wolf administration for yielding to the demands of the teachers unions instead of giving local districts leeway in how they might reopen, but she also blames her local school board for its unwillingness to provide more options to parents.
“The problem begins with Wolf,” she noted in an interview, “but it also comes down to superintendents and school board members who are afraid to act.”
Rosica pointed out how liability issues drive school board members’ fears. “But I told them that as a parent, I would be willing to sign a document that said I would not hold them responsible if my child contracts the virus at school,” she said. “Other parents were willing to do the same.”
Rosica also pointed to legislation, passed by both houses of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly last November, that would have protected schools, businesses, and healthcare providers from COVID-19-related liabilities so long as they pursued certain mitigation measures. Wolf, however, vetoed the legislation.
According to Rosica, teachers unions, which maintain that in-class learning remains unsafe, play a significant role in the present dysfunction. “Our position is that teachers are essential workers,” she said, noting how minimum wage employees continue to work in grocery stores and pharmacies.
Teachers, no doubt, make a significantly higher wage. As Rosica argued, they “can put on their masks and show up in the classroom.” The unions, however, continue to resist reopening. “It’s unconscionable what the teachers unions are doing, and it’s really sad,” Rosica said.
Last summer, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest public-employee union, with about 180,000 members, urged Wolf and his education secretary to develop online learning options that could replace in-person instruction. Throughout Wolf’s governorship, the PSEA has served as a major political ally: Its political action committee has donated about $2.4 million to Wolf since 2010.
In other words, even if parents succeed in reopening schools, they will continue to face long-standing institutional challenges. “There’s an imbalance of power — teachers unions and bureaucrats have much stronger voices than parents,” Colleen Hroncich, a senior policy analyst at the free market think tank Commonwealth Foundation, said in an interview. “In reality, parents should have the most say since they know their children best and are most directly impacted by these decisions.”
Hroncich also cited individual teachers’ disadvantages in the current union-dominated educational system. “So, even though many teachers want to return to the classroom, they’re kept out by these political decisions,” she said.
Of course, as Hroncich noted, more school choice, particularly allowing education funding to follow the individual student, would empower parents while also providing opportunities for teachers to escape bureaucratic control. Rosica supports school choice initiatives that give students the option to pursue cyberlearning, but she is concerned that COVID-19 restrictions will harm the majority of students who benefit from in-person instruction.
“There are some kids that thrive in a virtual environment and perform better,” she observed. “That’s why cyber schools have been so successful. But we have data that shows this is not true for the majority of students who learn best in the classroom.”
For now, many Pennsylvania school districts have settled on a “hybrid” approach wherein students attend school for two days but then learn remotely for the other three days. In households where parents can work remotely, children can receive the help they require to navigate virtual learning, Rosica said. But she finds this isn’t the case for minority and low-income parents who, in many cases, cannot work from home, placing their children at a disadvantage.
The “right to know” records substantiate these concerns about remote learning. At the high school level, between 6.5% and 10% of all students are now failing at least one core subject.
Meanwhile, between 17% and 20% of minority students are failing these same subjects. In both English and math, the results show that the number of middle school students failing is up more than 300% compared to last year. For minority students, these numbers are 1.5 to 3 times greater than the overall student population.
Such troubling outcomes require a public policy response. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers need to give parents more control over their children’s education. For example, the 2021 state budget should allocate funding for educational opportunity scholarships and increase the caps on tax credit scholarships. This would allow parents to get their children the help they need.
Prior to the COVID-19 shutdowns, Rosica would not have described herself as a proponent of school choice, but she is now. “As a result of this experience, I see why we need school choice,” she said. “I see where we need more accountability, and we need more competition in order to provide a more quality education and fairness and equity to all children.”
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., who writes for several national publications.
