Californians, Let’s Talk About Ditching School This Fall

Instead of Weighing Bad Options, Put Educational Resources and Personnel Toward Fighting the Pandemic

Perhaps we should stop pretending that California is going to educate its children this fall—and instead transfer our educational resources into COVID-19 control.

As the pandemic worsens, California parents, teachers, and students have been distracted by a bitter war over how to reopen education. But as a combatant in the conflict—and the father of three public school students—I’ve learned that reopening education is a war that can’t be won. None of the outcomes that people are fighting for—the full reopening of schools, a shift to distance learning, or a hybrid of …

by Joe Mathews | August 11, 2020

When COVID Came to Coalinga High, ‘School Just Ended in the Middle of the Sentence’

Amid AP Classes and College Prep, the Senior Class President Added Caretaker and Teacher for Her Four Younger Siblings to Her Load

by Alizé Basulto Ibarra | June 10, 2020

Before March 18, I was class president and a student in multiple Advanced Placement classes at my high school in a small town in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Since then, …

Why California’s Kids Should Go on Strike

As COVID Collapses Budgets, It’s Up to Children to Save Their Schools

by Joe Mathews | June 2, 2020

Dear California Kids,

Don’t let us adults destroy your futures! This time of “distance learning” and COVID-19 chaos is the opportunity of a generation—maybe a century—to fix what’s so very wrong …

I Deserve an ‘A’ for Flunking My Kids’ Distance Learning

Yes, I’m Doing a Poor Job—But Parents Have Become the Scapegoats for a Failing System

by Joe Mathews | May 12, 2020

I’m proudly doing my duty as a California parent. I’m flunking distance learning.

Distance learning is the term for our new COVID 19-era educational regime, which forces teachers and students to …

How Native Americans Made Basketball Their Own

In the Early 1900s, the Sport Offered a Rare Physical and Mental Refuge From Oppressive ‘Indian Schools’—and the Chance to Develop Distinctive Identities

by Wade Davies | April 15, 2020

Nowhere today are people more passionate about basketball than in Native American communities. Why?

The hoops seen outside most homes and gathering places on western reservations speak to basketball’s cultural significance …

Canceling School for COVID-19 Cheats California’s Kids

When This Epidemic Ends, Schools Should Make Up the 50 Days of Instruction Our Kids Are Missing Now

by Joe Mathews | March 31, 2020

Not one day.

Our kids should not lose one day of school, not a single day of instruction, to the coronavirus.

Let me be clear: I’m not arguing against closing schools right …

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