How COVID-19 accelerated the loss of local control over education
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Gov. Ron DeSantis is applauded before delivering his State of the State address during a joint session of the Florida Legislature at the Capitol in Tallahassee on March 2. (Ivy Ceballo/Miami Herald)
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One of the promises Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis made to Floridians in his State of the State address this year explicitly pit his administration against local elected officials in every county of the state.
"We will not let anybody close your schools," DeSantis said during the March 2 speech at the Florida Capitol.
The "we" of the DeSantis administration includes his education commissioner, Richard Corcoran, who last fall ordered districts statewide to reopen school buildings for students whose families chose to return. The "anybody" is school board members, who, per the state Constitution, "shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools within the school district."
Despite school board members' constitutional authority, for years the Florida Legislature has chipped away at the once-sacrosanct ideal of local control in public education, one piece of legislation at a time. That was especially true when Corcoran served as the powerful Republican speaker of the Florida House.
Now that he is state education commissioner, he has used his position to force one of the biggest battles yet over who's in charge of public schools: a mandate to open classrooms during a pandemic.
Corcoran won that battle, in both practical and political terms.
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State Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran attends a March 2019 meeting of the state Board of Education at the Capitol in Tallahassee. (Cat Gloria/WLRN)
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Schools across Florida are open, and the state remains one of only five in the country with any order in place that requires in-person instruction. A lawsuit over Corcoran's July order — brought by the state's largest teachers union, the Florida Education Association — resolved in his favor.
And while there was little public health data to support the decision when it was made last fall, there is now more evidence to suggest that the risks of in-person school are relatively low, while the negative ramifications of ongoing virtual learning are profound and varied. Florida finds itself in a position of having already done, months ago, what most of the rest of the country is just beginning, nearly a year into widespread school closures.
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Read and listen: We dive more deeply into how the pandemic has accelerated the loss of local control over Florida schools during this special Class of COVID-19 edition of the WLRN program The Sunshine Economy. Read and listen here.
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Chase Simmering, then president of the PTSA at Morningside K-8 Academy, lifts bags full of groceries to give to a fellow parent at the school during a donation pick-up event in June 2020. (Jessica Bakeman/WLRN)
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ICYMI: COVID-19 has starkly exposed the economic and racial divides at Morningside K-8 Academy, a dual-language magnet school in a gentrifying neighborhood in Miami. The parent-teacher association at the school has worked over the last several years to bring in resources that benefit all Morningside students, including field trips and a poetry enrichment program.
But it's easier to do what's best for the community when it's the same as what's best for one's own individual child — and for some parents, the pandemic has pitted those priorities against each other. Read the story and listen to the short documentary here.
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Act fast: There's only one more edition of the Class of COVID-19 newsletter! If you know people who might be interested, please share this link and ask them to subscribe. Read past issues here.
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On the topic: School reopening during COVID-19
- President Joe Biden walked back his promise to get most schools in the U.S. open during his first 100 days, a "daunting task" that the federal government has little control over. (Washington Post) Research shows that his adjusted goal — to have in-person classes at more than half of U.S. schools at least one day a week — was met before he took office. (Politifact)
- Republican governors throughout the country are ramping up pressure to reopen schools. (New York Times)
- Americans now believe students' academic regression should be a bigger consideration than the public health risks of school reopening, according to national polling. (Pew Research Center)
- A look back at a "long, messy year" of school reopening debates. "Teachers unions were accused of being obstinate and compromising education. The real story is a lot more complex." (The New Republic)
- When schools in Hong Kong reopened, there was an outbreak of the common cold — even with masks and social distancing. Experts believe it's because kids have been isolated and therefore have not built up immunity to mild viruses. (Stat News)
- New York City is getting ready to open its high schools. (New York Times)
- Education researchers James Bridgeforth and Steve Desir argue in an op-ed: "If school districts are truly committed to educational equity, district leaders will listen to Black families and try to solve some of the systemic inequities that disproportionately impact Black families — and were doing so long before the pandemic shuttered schools." (Hechinger Report)
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Class of COVID-19 launched one month ago today. Visit classofcovid.org to find all of the reporting in the project, including our special radio hour and television program.
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In the news: A roundup of news coverage for the Class of COVID-19 project from Florida Public Media.
- WLRN reporter Verónica Zaragovia shared her reporting on how school districts are attempting to locate "missing" students during an appearance on WUCF's NewsNight. Watch here.
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Up next:
The final edition of the Class of COVID-19 newsletter is coming to your inbox Thursday, March 11. We'll end this journey with a reporter's notebook essay from WFSU's Robbie Gaffney. In it, Gaffney reflects on their reporting on children with developmental disabilities, for whom school is more than just a place to study. It's an access point for vital therapies that help students with special needs learn how to do things like move and speak.
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Funding for Class of COVID-19 was provided in part by the Hammer Family Charitable Foundation and the Education Writers Association.
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