"Missing: All CA Students"

It uses a recognizable style as a vehicle to draw attention to the issue. The piece reads as a Missing Child poster, a rhetorical device utilized to appeal to the emotions of viewers. In doing so, it compares the severity of abducted children to the idea that students have been "missing" from their physical classrooms during the pandemic. It continues by offering a "reward: their future," indicating that action must be taken in order for students to receive the "payoff" of their education.
As a rhetorical piece, this example is effective at appealing to the emotions of viewers and drawing a connection between a horrible phenomenon many are familiar with (missing children) and the unfortunate circumstances of pandemic education. This image, however, is harmful in that it:
1) minimizes the pain and horror of people who have experienced an ACTUAL missing child;
2) conflates the lack of in-person schooling with the lack of schooling in general, which is not true-- schools have been open during the entire pandemic, even if physically gathering on campus was forbidden;
3) does little to address the difficulty of opening school campuses while there is still widespread community infection.