Thread by @dropoutnation

This argument assumes two things. The first: That data alone should guide decisions, even when other issues (such as how particular groups are affected by both public health issues and the legacies of White Supremacy) are of equal weight. This is a wrongheaded position.

https://twitter.com/lizcohen12/status/1310924532102893568

Secondly: Cohen acts as if choice is independent of other concerns. Regardless of what is going on in the world or how actions affect systems and other people, families should be able to do whatever they want.

This ignores the reality that we are connected and interdependent.

In a public health emergency, we can't simply do what we want without affecting other human beings. In the case of a highly communicable disease that can infect people just through breathing air, the more people doing whatever they want, the higher the risks of mass death.

One of the things libertarians and hardcore school choice advocates fail to appreciate is that choices will always be constricted during periods of pandemic. That's because the smallest things you do can lead to widespread outbreaks that destroy other people's families.

Sure, we understand that you want to send your child to in-person schooling. But doing that can lead to a teacher being debilitated for month and years, if not killed, by COVID infection. Which could lead to her kids and spouse suffering infection or death. Or dealing with...

the aftermath of death. A family that has to spend months and years caring for a loved one because of a debilitating infection is one whose own possibilities for better life has been curtailed by another's selfish act.

Choice in the context of pandemic often means someone choosing to kill someone else because they want things that may not be possible to have in a period time. That is anti-communitarian, the opposite of being caring members of a society that should care for one another.

I can't say that I need you to survive if I then push to reopen private schools who themselves have no more ability to minimize and mitigate infection than a traditional district or charter. You can't say that you need me to survive, either.

What we need right now is communal action that ensures that everyone has what they need to survive and gain high-quality education now. It isn't a voucher plan or microschools. It is expanding testing and tracing, providing all schools with PPE, and providing tutoring to all.

But as long as folks like Cohen continue to care more about choice than about the lives and health of all people, this choice rhetoric is going to do more harm than good.