42
BloombergBusinessweek October 12, 2020UniversityofChicagoinvitedherto
applyearlyfortenure,thenrejected
her.“Itwastheworst,”shesays,“like,
really,reallyterrible,”andthrewinto
questionherworthandidentity.
OsterandShapirosoonlandedat
Brown. Its economics department
didn’thavethecachetofChicago’sbut
broughtwithit thebenefitsoftenure
forbothandproximitytotheirfami-
lies.She’ssincegivenbirthtotheirson,
Finn,beenpromotedtochairofBrown’s
tenureandpromotionscommittee,and
beennamedtheRoyceFamilyProfessor
ofTeachingExcellence.
In 2019 she published Cribsheet,
which exploreswhatevidence says
aboutsleeptraining,languagedevelop-
ment,andvaccinations.It madewaves
foritsstanceonbreastfeeding:If you
doit,great,butif not,don’tfeelbad,
becausethebenefitsareoverblown.
Hercriticswerenowspeakingmore
loudly.LoriFeldman-Winter,chairof
theAmericanAcademyofPediatrics
SectiononBreastfeeding,faultedOster
inthepagesoftheNewYorkerfornot
beinganepidemiologist,accusedherof
misinterpretingresearch,andcompared
hertoanti-vaxxers.
OvermanyhoursofZoominterviews
withOster,it becamecleartomethat
thoughcriticismdoesn’tshakeherconfi-
dence,herfailuretopublisha significant
amountoforiginalresearch,thestan-
dardmetricbywhichherfieldmeasures
success,does.(Itprobablydoesn’thelp
thatShapiroisconsideredoneofthe
country’stopeconomistsasmeasured
bysaidmetric.)Butpeopleeverywhere
looktoherforanswers,I saidonedayas
shefixedherkidslunch.What’sthatfeel
like?“Itis cool,kindofweird,anda lit -
tlescary,”shereplied.“Somebodysaid
tomerecently,‘You’retheonlypersonI
listento.’AndI was,like,‘Oh,myGod.’”BY EARLY APRIL, OSTER’S
followers knew the pandemic had led
her to update her family’s emergency
food kit with a 5-pound jar of peanut
butter, alternate between “frantic obses-
sion with the mundane” and “existential
dread,” and begin cutting her kids’ hair.
(“It’s bad. Really bad.”) The number ofyoung people out of school worldwide
peaked around this time at 1.6billion,or
more than 91% of the global studentpop-
ulation, according to Unesco. Abouthalf
have since returned to class. Butparticu-
larly in the U.S., which has failedtocon-
tain the virus, the questions ofwhenand
how to reopen schools continuetotrou-
ble and polarize.
With no national reopeningplan,
the situation varies vastly depending
on geography. The hedge fundBrevan
Howard set out in August tocompile
data on the 100 largest U.S. schooldis-
tricts and found that 75 hadoptedfor
virtual instruction, 16 for in-person,and
9 fora hybrid.Theeconomicimplica-
tionsarestaggering.BrevanHoward
estimated that 4.3 millionworking
parents (read: mostly women)willbe
forced to reduce work hoursorquit
theirjobsaltogether,anoutcomethat
“maybeasdisruptivetothelabormar-
ketasa small-to-medium-sizedreces-
sion,” it says. “Investors needtoadd
schools to their usual dashboardofeco-
nomic indicators.”
Oster has broadly argued forreopen-
ing schools in person. The circumstances
underwhichshesaysthatcanhappen
safelyarefarmorenuancedthanthose
backedbytheTrumpadministration,
whichhaspushedforanopen-no-matter-
whatapproach.Butforparentsdesper-
atefortheirkidstoreturntoclass,the
important thing is that she’s ayes.
When it comes to reopeningsocietybroadly, the WHO draws a line at 5% of
Covid tests yielding positive results.
Oster defers to this threshold: Places
with infection rates higher than that
shouldn’t reopen schools—or bars or
gyms or water parks. Places with infec-
tions below that rate can reopen schools
if theyimplementprovensafetypro-
tocols,suchasmaskwearing,social
distancing, and adequate ventilation.
The ability to test and contact trace
should be robust and timely.
Such measures require money. Oster
argues they’re worthy, cost-efficient
investments, because reopening schools
brings critical benefits to the economy
and society: Parents can work. At-risk
kids will have a safe place to go and get
fed. The learning losses documented
when schools went online in the spring,
hitting low-income and students of color
the hardest, can be addressed. Oster has
also used her platform to highlight the
unequal reality of the U.S. education sys-
tem. “Without more resources, there
aremanyplaceswhereit simplywillnot
besafetoopen,”Ostersaidina Brown
webinarinAugust.
Oster’sviewslandhersomewherein
themainstreammiddle—closer to the
National Institutes of Health’s Anthony
Fauci than to people taking a hard line
against reopening until the virus is
effectively eliminated. The American
Academy of Pediatrics also favors resum-
ing in-person learning, where safely pos-
sible, noting the risks of not doing so
include social isolation and missed signs
of physical abuse and depression.
As vast swaths of the U.S. experi-
enced summer infection spikes and
Washington refused to provide schools
with extra funding, many teachers and
their unions lobbied districts to adopt
distance learning. Brad Marianno, an
assistant professor at the University of
Nevada at Las Vegas, who’s been track-
ing union negotiations, says Oster’s
work enables parents, antsy to get their
kids back into the classroom, to press
their case using data and not only feel-
ings. “When you can begin to bring evi-
dence to the conversation, that allows
you to also have influence,” he says.
One issue Oster has held up to4.3m
ESTIMATE OF WORKING
PARENTS (MOSTLY WOMEN)
WHO WILL BE FORCED
TO REDUCE WORK HOURS OR
QUIT THEIR JOBS IF
SCHOOLS DON’T REOPEN