The Schools We Have, Need, and Deserve

The masks are starting to come off in NYC, and elsewhere.

Only a few months ago, we — and I do mean the vast majority of us — held some shape of cloth in front of their faces on mass transit, not just because of government mandates, but because our neighbors understood safety was a community responsibility. The police and politicians weren’t as convincing as our elders and our babies. A few riders believed that, if they puffed their chests and held their noses at an upright angle, the coronavirus and all its variants would evade them, mainly based on what they heard from some podcaster, some entrepreneurial curator, or some Internet forum where dubious PDFs circulate. But the rest of us knew better and saw it for ourselves. It was easy to focus on the few and the haughty back then, as vaccination rates stayed at a better clip than the rest of the country after COVID-19 dragged bodies into ambulances all across the city.

But now feels different. The current mayor has relaxed mandates, made exceptions for athletes and performers, and believes swagger serves as a better antidote to the pandemic than science might. A critical mass has followed suit. In the rush to get back to normal, people have started to revert back to attitudes and behaviors that got us here in the first place. The policies of the economically and politically connected have taken…