In San Francisco, Virus is Contained but Schools Are Still Closed

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times - The Morning reads today (2-17-2022):

But the recall election this week that ousted three board members wasn’t about only local politics. It also reflected a trend: Many Americans, even in liberal places, seem frustrated by what they consider a leftward lurch from parts of the Democratic Party and its allies.

The San Francisco school-board recall joins this list. There, three separate issues drove the campaign.

First, the school board had attempted to rename 44 schools, so that they no longer honored anybody deemed reactionary. Among the apparent reactionaries were Paul Revere, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Senator Dianne Feinstein and John Muir, the environmentalist.

Second, the board tried to scrap an admissions system, based on grades and test scores, for Lowell High School, which Mark Barabak of The Los Angeles Times calls “one of the city’s most sacred institutions.” A lottery would have replaced it.

Third, the board kept schools closed for months during the pandemic and showed little concern for the damage. One of the since-recalled board members waved away the ineffectiveness of remote classes, saying that children were “just having different learning experiences.”