North Carolina’s economy is opening up after nearly two months of lockdown.
I wish the reopening was faster, broader and more reflective of the varying conditions across the state. I recognize others strongly disagree. But at least the question of whether to begin rebuilding our businesses and restoring our freedoms has now been answered in the affirmative.
Which still leaves many other critical questions unanswered.
For state policymakers, few decisions will be as challenging, or as broadly consequential, as those involving elementary and secondary education. For many North Carolina parents, Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home order wasn’t the event that upended their lives. That had already happened when their children’s schools closed.
Their child-care options dwindled and then disappeared, leaving no option for many other than working from home so they could watch their kids.
Although many educators made heroic efforts to come up with stopgap content online, parents soon realized they would have to become their children’s main teachers for the rest of the school year, a task for which many parents felt unprepared and with which many became increasingly frustrated.
While some families may find homeschooling more attractive than they once thought and continue the practice in whole or in part in the fall, for most there will be no practical alternative to enrollment in public or private schools.
So, North Carolina’s schools will reopen. And North Carolinians are going to have lots of arguments about it.
For several years, I have co-chaired the steering committee of the North Carolina Leadership Forum. The 2019 cohort focused on the subject of school choice. During the yearlong program, we debated every aspect of the topic vigorously. But the participants kept their heads, strove to learn from leaders with whom they disagreed and largely avoided the partisan talking points and insult comedy that – all too often – crowd out real conversation.
Despite a stark divide coming in, the 2019 group found common ground on several specific policies. And even when they didn’t, most came away thinking that, as one participant put it, “there are good, well-intended people on both sides of the issue.”
John Hood is chairman of the John Locke Foundation. He can be reached via email, jhood@johnlocke.org.