National Review
President Biden is keeping schools closed
Six months ago, when President Joe Biden was candidate Joe Biden, he spoke of “a crisis that is felt in all of the United States of America”. The crisis was the closure of schools. Millions of children were looking at laptops instead of learning in a classroom. Biden said: “This is a national emergency. President Trump does not have a real plan to open schools safely. He is offering nothing but flaws and delusions. ”Six months later, the educational crisis is rife, and now President Biden is only making matters worse. At Tuesday’s press conference, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House’s new goal was “to have the majority of schools, that is, more than 50 percent, open by the 100th of their day. presidency”. She defined it as “some kind of classroom teaching, so at least one day a week, I hope it’s more.” This is not just going back on a promise; is erasing one completely. According to the school data aggregator Burbio, we are well past the Psaki spring milestone today, and we were before Biden took office. More than 60 percent of school districts are already open with at least one “hybrid” model. “Hybrid” colloquially means two to three days per week of face-to-face learning. One day a week was originally not part of this debate. It is a new and inferior standard – one of the members of Team Biden. At first, I thought the transgression was simply that they had put the problem in the background and were not paying attention to it, due to the strange statement of one day a week. But after 24 hours of negative reaction, Psaki was asked to clarify these observations and she doubled over, calling the plan “bold and ambitious”. And adhering to the standard of one day, she said that they hoped to exceed it. Again, this supposedly bold and ambitious plan was overcome before the inauguration. Politico Playbook said: “It is a goal so modest and without ambition that it almost makes no sense”. President Biden’s ambitious rhetoric about schools would always have a collision course with the teachers’ union benefactors, who just don’t want schools to reopen fully anytime soon. Not even after teachers took priority in vaccinations and elementary and high schools received more than $ 68 billion in 2020 to mitigate COVID problems. I just didn’t expect him to break a fundamental campaign promise so early in his presidency. So, what is keeping Biden from keeping his word? The White House would argue that it is funding, ventilation and class size. Let’s look at one at a time. As mentioned, Congress allocated more than $ 68 billion in 2020 for COVID mitigation in K-12 schools. So far, most of that money has not been spent. This did not stop the Biden government from demanding another $ 130 billion. But let’s ignore the billions of dollars currently not spent for a moment and ask the essential question: will more funding help? In fact, schools that are currently open five days a week in America are parochial schools, which generally have less funding per student than their public counterparts, and public schools that do not compete with closed school student wealth, but well – funded districts like Chicago, Fairfax County, San Francisco and others. The question is will, not resources. Ventilation is simply a crutch to excuse doing nothing. It was a problem identified in early 2020, again to mitigate back to school before a coronavirus vaccine was available. The $ 68 billion authorized by Congress provided funds specifically for ventilation. But most schools have done little or nothing in the past year to improve ventilation, and it is more likely that we will finally return to school before any substantial changes are made to the thousands of schools that remain closed. The absence of new ventilation systems did not prevent most schools that opened to some extent without interruption. Meanwhile, focusing the debate on the importance of class size is a way of disguising the proposition that children will go to school two days a week indefinitely. The idea is that an entire class increases the risk, so we need to cut class sizes in half. But no one realistically believes that the United States is about to double its capacity to build schools, at least not next year. Anyone whose child has gone to class in a trailer behind a school building knows that it takes years to develop plans for new buildings, employees and district lines. The two-day hybrid model, with implicitly smaller classes, was created to take children back to the classroom before a vaccine was available. Inept school councils continued to delay the end of this temporary measure. Now, after being done for so long, it is being deceptively adopted as the post-vaccine ideal. This is just crazy. After teachers in closed school districts are vaccinated, schools must be open full-time, five days a week, just as many of their peers are already doing (and as some were doing before vaccines were even available). Now that teachers are being vaccinated, for whom are we making these major infrastructure changes? It is not for teachers, whose risk will happily be measured in decimal places soon. And it is not for children, who – the public health authorities remind us often and repeatedly – are not significant spreaders or victims of this virus. In fact, the main health crises that children face today – depression, suicide, lack of confidence, academic failures, lack of socialization, poor nutrition, insufficient exercise – are caused by closures, not by the virus. In September 2020, Joe Biden said: “President Trump may not think this is a national emergency, but I think that going back to school for millions of children and the impacts on their families and the community is a national emergency. I believe this is it. ”If this was a national emergency six months ago, and it still is today, where is Joe? Some would argue that he should have more time and that patience is needed. He’s only been in office for a few weeks. But we shouldn’t be surprised that many parents just don’t have the patience. Others argue that defending the opening of schools is against the teacher. It is a convenient way to end the debate, because teachers are often underpaid and underestimated and therefore are not open to criticism. But I love my children’s teachers, who are doing the best they can. It is about being pro-children, not anti-teacher. In September, President Biden said: “Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos did not perform. We are all seeing the results. Millions of students now start the new school year in the same way they ended the previous year at home. At home. Parents are doing their best, but increasingly find themselves lost, struggling to balance work, child care and educational duties, or worrying about losing their wages and how they will survive while trying to keep their children learning remote. According to Biden’s current plan, he failed to live up to the standard he set for Trump. It is time for Biden to address this issue on purpose. It has a huge influence on unions and those who advocate that children remain deprived of face-to-face education indefinitely. He has a serious group of public health counselors who can persuade nervous parents and teachers of the low risks they face when they return to the classroom (especially after a vaccine). As Joe Biden said six months ago on this subject: “Mr. President where are you? Where are you? Why aren’t you working on it? Mr. President, this is your job. This is what you should focus on now. Take our children back to school safely. “