Inferior Education or Killing Grandma: The Dilemma Facing the Public School Systems in the United States

Due to COVID-19, school districts in the fall of 2020 had to decide whether to conduct all classes in person or offer some or all of these classes virtually. Many school districts would decide on a program and then change their decision based on the COVID-19 situation in their area. These changes caused education and personal issues for the students, teachers, parents, and others who worked in their school system. This paper explores how the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a well-regarded, multi-criteria decision analysis approach, can be used to analyze this situation by developing two prototype versions of the AHP and illustrating these versions of the AHP with a detailed example. The team approach for analyzing this issue is also described. Additionally, the current situation of this problem in the United States and elsewhere is discussed. Finally, Professor Bodin is making software that he has developed available (at no cost) for carrying out many of the computations for the AHP versions described in this paper.