The Week - USA (2021-02-19)

16 NEWS Talking points

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Schools: Is it time to bring the students back to class?

Many parents, school officials, lawmakers,
and scientists believe “this is the moment”
to return children to in-person schooling,
said Laura Ungar and Samantha Young
in USAToday.com. Covid case counts are
falling across the nation; working parents
are burned-out; and kids are falling behind
socially, emotionally, and academically. Sci-
entists from the Centers for Disease Control
recently concluded that the “preponderance
of available evidence” from the fall semes-
ter suggests that schools can safely reopen
so long as masking, social distancing, and
proper ventilation are observed. But teach-
ers unions in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland,
Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Wash-
ington, D.C., and elsewhere have all resisted calls to return to the
classroom, arguing that the risk to their own health is too great. A
recent survey of 1,200 school districts across America showed that
only 38 percent of students, K-12, were attending school in person
as of late January, 38 percent virtually, and 24 percent a hybrid
of the two. “The debate heated up” after CDC head Dr. Rochelle
Walen sky said that schools could safely reopen without teach-
ers first getting vaccinated, said Ayesha Rascoe in NPR.org. The
White House, which has vowed to spend $130 billion to get most
schools back to in-person instruction no later than May 1, down-
played her remarks, explaining that Walensky was giving her per-
sonal opinion rather than official CDC guidance.

The science on the question is fairly settled, said Derek Thompson
in TheAtlantic.com. A “waterfall of research from around the
world” has shown that day care– and elementary school–age chil-
dren are far less likely to contract Covid-19 than adults and far less
likely to become seriously ill or hospitalized if they do contract it—
and that they rarely spread it. (High school kids are more likely to
be infected and to infect others.) In January, Norwegian researchers
tracked more than 200 kids ages 5 to 13 and found not a single
instance of secondary spread. Those results mirror an earlier study
of 1,000 kids in Ireland and yet another study of 35 North Caro-
lina school districts: zero transmission from kids to adults. “Every-
one had a fear there would be explosive outbreaks of transmission
in the schools,” said Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center
for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Min-
nesota. “To date, we have not seen those in the younger kids.”

Teachers unions need to accept science and

evidence, said David Brooks in The New

York Times. It’s clear that in-person school-

ing is safe, and just as clear that remote

learning is “marring children’s lives.” One

Stanford University study showed that

the average student has already lost three-

quarters of a year of learning in math and

a third of a year in reading—and those

numbers could be even worse for “disad-

vantaged students.” Other studies found

that the “loss of learning” could diminish

the lifetime earnings of affected children by

3 percent, and that the resulting financial

stress could shave a combined 13.8 million

years off their life spans. Teachers unions are badly hurting “the

most vulnerable people in our country”—kids.

Actually, teachers have reason for fear, said Harmeet Kaur in

CNN.com. In Cobb County, Ga., educators have been work-

ing despite three of their colleagues having died since Christmas.

Nationally, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) reports that

more than 530 of its members succumbed in 2020 to Covid-19,

although it can’t be proven that they caught the virus at school.

Many teachers who have returned to classrooms have sleepless

nights, worrying that they will get infected and transmit the virus

to spouses, kids, and other family members. Let’s not forget that

many teachers have underlying health conditions, and 31 percent

are older than 50, said Jonathan Reiner, also in CNN.com. If

states were serious about reopening schools, they should prioritize

vaccinating teachers. So far, only 24 states plus Washington, D.C.,

and Puerto Rico have done so.

Parents fed up with remote learning “are voting with their chil-

dren’s feet,” said Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal.

About 60 percent of private schools are providing in-person

instruction, versus only 24 percent of public schools. As a result,

enrollment in California’s K-12 public schools has plunged by a

record 155,000 during the pandemic, and by 43,000 in New York

City and by 45,000 in Virginia. These kids are largely switching to

private or charter schools, “learning pods” with a trained teacher,

or some version of homeschooling. “The pandemic is shifting the

ground beneath public schooling,” and with school choice benefit-

ing both parents and kids, “it can’t happen soon enough.”

An in-person class in Nashville this week

QIn a legal brief Donald Trump’s lawyers

filed with the Senate for the impeachment

trial, Trump is referred to 44 times as the

“45th president” and never as the “former

president.” Trump’s spokesmen and legal

team have adhered to that wording in all

communications, evidently to conform to

Trump’s insistence that he is the rightful

winner of the 2020 election.

MSNBC.com

QFormer President Trump’s insistence

that the 2020 presidential election was

stolen from him has cost taxpayers at

least $519 million. That tally includes the

costs of sending National Guard troops to

Washington, D.C., defending against law-

suits, security for poll workers who faced

death threats, and repairing damage to the

Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The Washington Post

Q The 200 Cath-

o lic dioceses

in the U.S. and

other Catholic

institutions have

received at least

$3 billion in

taxpayer- funded

Paycheck Protection Program Covid-

relief. A church spokeswoman said the

PPP was designed “to protect the jobs of

Americans from all walks of life...faith-

based or secular.”

APNews.com

Q No U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan

for a year. The Biden administration says

it will keep the current 2,500 troops in that

country while it takes “a hard look” at

whether the Taliban are complying with

the terms of a peace deal negotiated by

the Trump administration.

WashingtonExaminer.com

Noted