The reopening schools issue reminds me of how in many states school boards had to decide about arming teachers.
No national or state mask mandate means that decisions are pushed down to cities, counties and school boards.
When there is no law and no funding strings boards can be swayed by the powerful & organized people in their community.
In the past the “guns everywhere” people were better organized, had better lobbyists and catchier messaging. So they won.
Lately the Parkland activists, MDA and other groups fought back at the state and local level. But they didn’t always win.
I watched a LOT of those meetings. Allowing those boards to make life or death medical decisions is crazy.
Part of the blame goes to medical professionals and scientists who say, “Just look at the data!” Elected officials can be craven cowards. They don’t make decisions based on reason alone.
The data alone isn’t going to make elected officials act the way we want, so we must use other pressures.
In Florida I watched school boards decide about arming teachers. The Governor said, “You have to do something from the options we decided on.”
The choices were cops in schools, armed security guards, or teachers/admin with guns. The school districts wanted to comply with the state law so they went with those options–even though cops in schools were proved ineffective at stopping mass shootings.
The state also used funding to get their way.
This is the same kind of pressure that cities (and by extension school boards) are getting now on opening schools in states with no mask laws.
1000’s of people die every month from gun violence and the national elected officials said “We won’t pass laws stopping guns. State officials said, “We won’t pass state laws banning guns AND we won’t allow cities to ban guns.”
In this environment school districts had to figure out how to save student lives while their city and state were swimming in guns.
The state said “We will give you resources for School Resource Officers. We did this because they have a great slogan, “Only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns!” The data shows that they don’t stop students from being killed 99.99 percent of the time they are deployed, but the gun lobby had the best slogan and their views influenced our elected officials better than the views of the groups against it.
The attitude in America up to Parkland was, “We can’t stop the proliferation on guns outside the schools, it’s too hard. We voted to let the numbers grow and grow and now we all just need to live with a certain level of gun deaths every month.” That attitude on guns still prevails, while some of us are working on mitigation gun deaths others are still pushing for more guns.
Masks for all would help prevent COVID-19 infections inside the schools, but even better would be NO COVID-19 outside of schools. Sadly we have to deal with higher Covid rates OUTSIDE of schools because we weren’t willing to learn from other countries. Now some states aren’t willing to learn from other states! We also have an incompetent corrupt leaders at the national and state level.
But just like the way the elected didn’t pass national and state gun laws–meaning there’s a high percent of guns floating around in the state–the elected won’t pass mask laws, meaning more COVID-19 is floating around the state.
More guns in cities and states increases the odds of more school shootings and deaths. More COVID-19 in cities and states increases the odds of more school infections & deaths.
The lobbyists who want guns everywhere do it so they can make money. Yes, they will talk about “freedom” but it’s about making more money. Until recently they were a more powerful lobby than the people who didn’t want guns everywhere.
Why won’t states pass mandated mask laws? Because the lobby that says, “The economy!” and “Trump’s reelection!” is powerful now.
Parents will have to go to cities, counties and school boards to fight and explain that the lives of teachers and children are more important than “The Economy!”
The parents will be up against people who will will use lies, bribes, threats and slogans to win. They will talk about “Freedom” from mask wearing but it’s really people making money in “The 1% economy” and supporting what Trump decides.
The Trump admin have given up preventing the proliferation of COVID-19 just like many Americans have given up on gun proliferation saying “it’s too hard to stop.” Guns are everywhere because of people’s previous actions. Actions can be taken to change that.
Elected officials saw that we would accept a certain level of deaths from gun violence every month even thought they could be preventing by passing certain laws at the national and state level.
Now some elected officials are preventing certain laws at the national and state level from being passed that could prevent deaths from COVID-19. They expect us to accept a certain level of COVID-19 deaths every month just like we accepted the gun deaths. We have the data to show how mandated mask laws will save lives, but the data alone isn’t going to make elected officials do the right thing to protect lives.
When our national and state leaders fail us we need to use all our skills, and pressures to keep our students & teachers alive.
