With COVID-19 relief gone, teachers are losing their jobs. It’s a blow to diversity.
The first anecdotal story (all news is required to lead with an anecdotal story):
Erica Popoca’s ninth grade English students were livid in the spring when she told them she wouldn’t be back to teach this fall.
The district where she works in Hartford, Connecticut, terminated her contract because the COVID-19 relief money that covered her salary was about to dry up.
Actually … CT has closed 75 schools in the past ten years due to declining enrollment. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a media meme! CT districts weigh school consolidation as K-12 enrollment declines (ctmirror.org)
This is due to a drop in fertility rates: When It Comes To Fertility Rates, Connecticut Ranks Among The Lowest In The Country – Hartford Courant: The CT fertility rate (for 2022) is 1.55 well below the 2.1 to 2.2 needed to maintain a population.
USA Today says the layoffs are due to a decline in Covid era extra funding, and the layoffs target persons of color. But CT schools have been closing for years and are continuing to close due to sharply declining enrollment, which is correlated with the drop in the fertility rate.
The reporter was apparently unable to consider there may be multiple reasons for layoffs – and pitches the story as layoffs due to a Covid subsidy decline, and disproportionately impacting “persons of color”.
USA Today never mentions the long-standing enrollment decline – which is a critical fact to this story.
USA Today has become a nonsensical source for “news”. They do these mega bloopers weekly.
