The mystery is why

CPS has its reasons for reopening, and it isn't really giving them

We could still change direction. CPS could still call off the resumption of in-person learning for pre-K and special needs students that is supposed to start next week, with all other students following shortly after. Janice Jackson and Mayor Lightfoot could heed the 32 aldermen who have called for more transparency, a testing and tracking structure, and a better plan. They could listen to teachers who have complained of dirty rooms with windows that won’t open and lacking the promised HEPA filters. They could listen to the LSCs who are advising against the reopening plan. They could acknowledge science. They could stand up for families and teachers.

They could. They can.

But for now they’re not budging. And their language to teachers, many of whose requests to remain home for health reasons have been denied, is getting increasingly threatening and contradictory.

Janice Jackson and Mayor Lightfoot are very convinced. But let’s look at the reasons CPS is giving for reopening. I don’t think they’re persuasive.

CPS officials talk a lot about “equity.” Low income learners, they allege, are the ones being the most harmed by remote learning, and we have to reach these children in the name of “equity.”

That may be true. But the funny thing is, the families of low-income learners aren’t the ones driving this decision. When city officials talk about “equity” and “low income” this is code for people of color. While 33% of families of color elected to return to in-person school, 67% of white families chose that option. Quick review of district demography: 10% of CPS families are White. 84% are Black or Hispanic. Who is driving the decision here?

Why is CPS ignoring the concerns of people in the ZIP-code areas with out of control community spread of COVID? Why is CPS not concerned about multigenerational households, common in communities of color, who will have many more vulnerable members? Why is CPS ignoring the concerns of teachers in these communities, who feel CPS is destabilizing necessary remote learning where in-person learning is a poor option?

It’s a pretty thing to talk about, to be concerned about. It is actually important. A real concern. Deeply needed in our city. Equity. But somehow it never works out quite—what’s the word—equitably in CPS. Folks can be forgiven for not taking the mayor’s and the CPS CEO’s righteous demands for equity seriously when they’re not even listening to their “equity” constituency.

If equity isn’t the real reason for reopening, is it something else? Is it that reopening is “safe” now? Many sources state this, and city officials repeat it every day. But the odd thing is, when you read the fine print—that is, anything in the story beyond the headline—it turns out reopening schools is safe only in communities where COVID spread is under control. For those not paying attention, COVID is not under control in Chicago. In fact our citywide case positivity rate just ticked up to 9.9%. In some neighborhoods the case positivity rate is over 17%. In very few neighborhoods, it is as low as 4%. In such a neighborhood, it might be safe to reopen a school. But in fact, most of CPS is not in the Loop. If COVID spread in schools reflects community spread why on earth would we reopen schools in communities with 17% case positivity rates?

If Mayor Lightfoot thought that the city wasn’t in good enough shape in August to reopen CPS, one wonders why it’s okay now—with a case positivity rate nearly twice that of August.

Elliott Haspel in The Atlantic today explains that this debate about whether schools are “safe” places in the pandemic is quickly becoming irrelevant. In many communities where schools have been open, so many teachers have gotten sick or are quarantining that there aren’t enough people to staff the school.

The CPS reopening plan isn’t really driven by equity and it isn’t really driven by safety. Where did this plan come from?

I have a theory.

CPS lost almost 15,000 students this fall, the largest single-year drop in decades. This represents, among many other things, a vast revenue loss. The problem is nationwide, as many states rely, like CPS, on student-based budgeting—where dollars follow students. (Each child has a dollar amount on their little heads—starting with $4822 for the littlest learners, to $5589 for high schoolers in CPS as of 2019). One state finance official says that the loss of students this year is sending districts into a financial “death spiral.” Revenue losses based on enrollment drops hit high poverty schools the hardest, whose communities have the fewest resources and whose students have the greatest needs.

In CPS, the loss has been concentrated in pre-K—41% of the total drop in students is in pre-K.

This loss of pre-K students raised alarms to CPS leadership. They speak of a generation of mostly low-income lost children who will fall behind and never catch back up. Won’t “learning loss” (a worry flogged by testing companies) cling to these children for the rest of their lives? Mathematician and educator John Ewing in Forbes puts a pin in the learning loss myth. The decision some parents made to keep pre-K kids home was a practical choice, and when their kids return to school next year they will likely jump in where they would have this year—in a context with toys, playhouses, rug time, book corners, and recess, all things CPS preschoolers returning to the classroom next week will not have. This is not a generation of lost children. They’re kids who will be starting pre-K a little older than they would have without a global pandemic.

But do these thousands of children represent a permanently smaller CPS going forward? Do they represent a permanently reduced SBB funding base? Was the real alarm heard by CPS officials, perhaps, financial?

Reopening now makes no sense at all if you consider it from an equity perspective or a public health angle. It only makes sense if you look at it purely in terms of 15,000 students lost, and the ensuing revenue loss for the district.

But evidence is mounting every day that children spread COVID just as adults do. To me this seems like a higher cost than $4822 per head.

Follow me on twitter @JulieVassilatos.