A Houston-based friend’s Facebook post:
I’m happy for the Astros winning the World Series. Really I am. But HISD’s decision to cancel school so the kiddos can take part in the festivities? Umm, hello, parents have jobs and stuff! Couldn’t the Astros be festive on Saturday?
He’s referring to “HISD schools, offices closed Friday for Astros World Series victory celebration”.
This is interesting to me because he is not upset that children will be denied the opportunity to learn. He is upset because taxpayer-funded daycare won’t be provided.
[In case you’re thinking that he might be anti-education or anti-intellectual… he is employed as a professor by Rice University.]
Related:
- Smartest Kids in the World: American Schools
Suggesting that schools should follow a regular schedule that lets people plan their days is not incompatible with valuing education.
Every Whoville has its grinch. I wonder how he took the flooding earlier this year?
Not a parent, but I imagine that purchasing a single day of daycare is not a thing? Hiring a sitter for the day when the entire school district is doing the same is also maybe problematic?
Tom: His house came through the flooding just fine and he was right back at work a few days later.
Z: Purchasing any kind of day care is challenging in the U.S. Remember that the private parent has to compete with SSDI, SSI, TANF, and a lot of other government-funded systems to direct cash or cash-equivalents to people with only basic skills.
Prof can definitely bring children to lectures or leave them in the office.
In my experience, the schools only spend about 30% of the time on actual learning. The other 70% is day care. So maybe he is 70% upset about the loss of day care, and only 30% upset about the loss of learning.
People have jobs, something like 9 to 5, 5 days a week. They organize their lives and their child care plans around this. On holidays they plan ahead to make other child care arrangements. Unscheduled holidays, where the kids are off, but the adults aren’t, throw these plans into disarray.
Upper class people generally have jobs where an unscheduled day off to take care of the children won’t threaten their employment. Restaurant staff and retail workers, on the other hand, regularly get fired for not showing up for work.