There are also three enormous human costs to the bureaucracy-union stranglehold over education and the refusal to put the children’s interests first:

First, virtually every serious study shows that poor children in impoverished neighborhoods have the greatest need for face-to-face education. They have the least ability to learn by video, and all the reports this spring have reinforced this fact…

Second, children with disabilities especially need real human interaction, in-person sympathy and a commitment by mentors to help them overcome the challenges they face. Leaving them at home to cope with online learning is simply cruel – and undoes a generation of hard work at helping children with disabilities experience full lives.

Third, there are a host of practical services, especially for low-income students, such as school breakfast and lunch, seeing the school nurse, having a safe place to go while your parents work, and seeing the school guidance counselor that all come from the school system. When these are cut off, the lives of the poorest children become much more difficult.