US inequalities spark school reopening battles
Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Chicago
The issue of reopening schools during the pandemic in the US has become intertwined with the increasing gap between their rich and poor.
With a major teachers’ strike looming Chicago has become the key battleground in the reopening of schools amid America’s struggles handling the coronavirus. The root issue is not racial disparities or even health safety but how the pandemic keeps worsening long standing economic inequalities between the rich and poor classes.
In the decentralized United States system funding for schools comes mainly from local taxes. While schools in wealthy neighborhoods have plenty of resources for hand sanitizers and masks, schools in poor areas are being asked to cope with pandemic-related costs despite decades of non-investment.
This year child care costs have soared a back-breaking 60%. The US has such a small social safety net that households with children usually require two working parents to survive economically, so reopening schools is a financial imperative for many.
National health officials say schools should reopen and follow new health guidelines, but unions say a job walkout may be the only solution to show that poor areas don’t have the resources to meet those guidelines.
New US President Joe Biden’s push to reopen is the opposite of many Western nations who have re-shuttered schools as a worrying coronavirus variant has emerged.
Many have been surprised at the partial reopening now being politically ordered in many sectors of society even though daily nationwide deaths are still almost 60% more than the peak daily death totals in spring.
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