{"id":16263,"date":"2022-07-05T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=16263"},"modified":"2024-11-19T13:47:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T18:47:46","slug":"readin-and-writin-and-rithmatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=16263","title":{"rendered":"Readin\u2019 and Writin\u2019 and \u2018Rithmatic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Published July 8, 2020 by Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 <\/em>Do you know how many students attended public schools in the United States in the 2019-2020 school year? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, https:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/fastfacts\/<\/a>, about \u00a050.8 million \u2013 35.5 million in prekindergarten to grade 8, and 15.3 million in grades 9-12.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About 3.7 million students graduated from high school this spring, in the strangest ending to a school year anyone can recall. I\u2019ve heard stories from my parents of \u201cdepression years\u201d and school schedules revolving around \u201ccotton-picking time.\u201d My Dad was double-promoted in high school during hard times and wound up graduating at age 16. \u201cDaddy had been a school teacher, and he made sure I got my studies done first. So I’d go to classes in the morning and then put in a crop in the afternoon,” he told. \"\"<\/a>My Mom was dealt a reverse blow \u2013 her father held her back for two of her school years; once due to a lengthy illness and once when she simply needed to help support the family. My grandfather was a carpenter, and she dug clay from the riverbank to make bricks. But both parents persevered. They made it, despite the odds.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s high schoolers were hit with an unexpected, unpredictable crisis along about March. In a flurry of fears and fumbles, as the COVID-19 virus began to creep across the country, schools shifted to stay-at-home, online classes. The methods varied from state to state, even within school districts. \u201cLet\u2019s stay home till this passes,\u201d was Plan 1.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t pass. Virus cases continued to go up and state governors were tasked with issuing mandates to protect their citizens. What a thoroughly depressing \u201crock and a hard place\u201d to be between. We can\u2019t let 3.5 million kids miss a senior year! But also, we can\u2019t let 50.8 million kids sit side by side in a classroom when the danger of illness, or death, is entirely possible.<\/p>\n

So what to do?<\/p>\n

You know what happened, it\u2019s past now. My two high-school-senior-grandchildren toughed it out, sitting at home with their laptops; certain hours for online classtime and individual study. Yes, you can STUDY at home (that\u2019s normally called \u201chomework\u201d) but how the heck do you complete a welding class online? They missed the senior prom, the cross-country meets, the camaraderie with school chums. It all went flat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I applaud the effort their school officials made to create \u201cvirtual graduation ceremonies\u201d so they did get to WEAR those caps and gowns; they did get photographed with smiling faces and feted with \u201cimmediate-family-at-home parties.\u201d \"\"<\/a>And cake, of course, cake. I\u2019ve heard stories from friends in different parts of the country that told of similar, and some very unusual, solutions for \u201chow to make it SPECIAL for the Class of 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Life goes on, and the virus isn\u2019t letting up as the fall \u201cschool year\u201d fast approaches. The daily news is mostly daily arguments and accusations; we MUST do this; we CANNOT do that. The impact of school closures extends far beyond \u201ceducational concerns\u201d or \u201chealth concerns.\u201d Financial, emotional, practical, common-sense issues are topsy-turvy; our structured way of life is no longer certain of its footings.<\/p>\n

I analyze COVID-19 cases every day on the CDC site; today\u2019s totals are 2,982,900 with 145,663 deaths so far in our 50 states, the District of Columbia, and our US territories.<\/p>\n

Top Ten List<\/h3>\n

Sometimes, I noted, it isn\u2019t good to make the TOP TEN LIST. Today, the ten US states dealing with the highest sheer numbers of COVID-19 cases are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 399,925: New York. Capital City Albany, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Democrat<\/li>\n
  2. 277,724: California. Capital City Sacramento, Governor Gavin Newsom, Democrat<\/li>\n
  3. 210,594: Florida. Capital City Tallahassee, Governor Ron DeSantis, Republican<\/li>\n
  4. 210,585: Texas. Capital City Austin, Governor Greg Abbott, Republican<\/li>\n
  5. 173,878: New Jersey. Capital City Trenton, Governor Phil Murphy, Democrat<\/li>\n
  6. 149,574: Illinois. Capital City Springfield, Governor J B Pritzker, Democrat<\/li>\n
  7. 110,338: Massachusetts. Capital City Boston, Governor Charlie Baker, Republican<\/li>\n
  8. 105,094: Arizona. Capital City Phoenix, Governor Doug Ducey, Republican<\/li>\n
  9. 100,470: Georgia. Capital City Atlanta, Governor Brian Kemp, Republican<\/li>\n
  10. 92,148: Pennsylvania. Capital City Harrisburg, Governor Tom Wolf, Democrat<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Phil Murphy, J B Pritzker, Charlie Baker, Doug Ducey, Brian Kemp, and Tom Wolf, governors of these hardest-hit states, have some tough decisions ahead. So do the governors, and health departments, and school boards, of ALL our states and territories.<\/p>\n

    There are more than 50 million children out there whose future rocks, and rolls, on the decisions you make.<\/p>\n

    Tomorrow: Colleges<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Originally Published July 8, 2020 by Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 Do you know how many students attended public schools in the United States in the 2019-2020 school year? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, https:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/fastfacts\/, about \u00a050.8 million \u2013 35.5 million in prekindergarten to grade 8, and 15.3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3464],"tags":[3535,3543,3549,3541,3551,3548,3471,3542,3552,3536,1300,3547,3538,3545,3540,3550,3539,3537,3546,3544],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16263"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19270,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263\/revisions\/19270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}