Fox News - Sen. Tim Scott: COVID taught us this lesson -- school choice matters more than ever

Op-Ed

By Tim Scott

Over the last year, the coronavirus pandemic has forced families of all backgrounds to make impossible choices.

People's lives and livelihoods have been upended; we've changed the way we engage in our communities; and schools across the country have been shuttered, presenting unexpected challenges for working families. While the impact we're feeling now is immediate, the unintended consequences of keeping our young people home for a year will be felt far into their futures and the future of our country.

According to a study released last summer by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 41 percent of children in my home state of South Carolina are being raised in single-parent households.

School closures forced parents--many already working one or more jobs--to take on the additional full-time job as at-home teachers. And in the case of single parents, some were forced to quit their jobs to stay home with their children.

While kids of all ages have been asked to stay out of the classroom in favor of safer "virtual learning," families in rural and low-income neighborhoods know that this only works for those with reliable home broadband access.

There is no practical form of virtual learning for one in ten South Carolina households without reliable internet access, more than one-third of rural Americans without access to home broadband, or one-quarter of children living in Opportunity Zones without access to a computer with Internet.

Source