> > they just don’t care about teachers

> I think you mean, they don’t care about students? Because that’s truly who is hurt here.

It is true in some transitive sense that the people making these decisions don't care about students, but insisting on that phrasing seems either hostile to, or at least minimising of the importance of and impact on, teachers.

The school or district administration's role is to care for the students, yes, but (at least in the classroom) they do that indirectly, by choosing, training, and equipping skilled and qualified teachers.

An administration who is showing contempt for its teachers is thus, indirectly, showing contempt for its students; but it's directly showing contempt for its teachers, and cutting them out of the story says that the harm they experience is not important. Teachers already are, like so many essential workers, expected to do their job endlessly without any commensurate reward; what is the point of denying the harm (for example, by saying or implying that they aren't truly hurt) that is done to them when they are not given even the basic tools to translate their passion for teaching and care for their students into commensurate results?

(I would also be opposed to someone responding to claims of harm to the students by saying "why not focus on the teachers?—they're the ones who are truly hurt." There's no monopoly on suffering; we can acknowledge one group's suffering without pretending that they're the only ones.)

I mean, for every 20-30 kids, there’s also an adult trying to educate them. Everyone’s fucked in the situation, and all you need to do is follow the money to understand the motivations. For example, my wife has to take real time attendance on a zoom call every morning in a 30 minute window, when everything else can be asynchronous. Why? Because schools are funded by attendance of the students, and they couldn’t be bothered to think of an alternative way to handle things.

The teachers will work themselves into an early grave just to help the kids. Nobody's doing that for teachers. Teachers are more at risk of actually dying when in-person learning is forced on them as some school districts have done. And they have their livelihood to think about (many live a little more than paycheck to paycheck).

Comparatively, the kids aren't dying, they don't have bills to pay, they don't work overtime. Their parents may even be able to pull them from school, or homeschool. Worst case they might be held back a year.

The students will survive this, but the teachers literally might not.

Can't it be both? I think it's both.

It seems like they're focused on politics, since that's what gets them paid. If school choice comes around, they'll probably change their priorities.