Does the Covid pandemic spell the end of public schools?

We might be entering the last days of public education in America. The United States, which led the world in expanding access to public education to boys and girls in the 1800s, is poised to become the first rich nation to abandon that commitment as longstanding political efforts to undermine public schools meet the existential threat posed by the coronavirus. As privileged parents determine what to do if schools are closed or online this fall, their individual choices could, in the aggregate, presage a shift away from public education and back to the market-based private education that predated it.