National overview
President Biden closes schools
Six months ago, when President Joe Biden was candidate Joe Biden, he spoke of “a crisis that is being felt throughout the United States.” The crisis was the closure of the school. Millions of children stare at laptops rather than learning in a classroom. Biden said: ‘This is a national emergency. President Trump has no real plan to open schools safely. He offers nothing but failures and errors. “Six months later, the education crisis is raging, and current President Biden has only made it worse so far. At Tuesday’s press conference, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the new goal in the White House was “to open the majority of schools, more than 50 percent, by day 100 of his presidency.” She defines it as “some teaching in the classrooms, so hopefully it’s more.” This is not just a promise; it completely erases one. According to Burbio, the school data collector, we are already past Psaki’s spring milestone today, and we were even before Biden took office. More than 60 percent of the school districts are already open with at least one ‘hybrid’ model. ‘Hybrid’ generally means two to three days a week of personal learning. One day a week was originally not part of this debate. This is a new and lower standard – introduced by Team Biden. At first I thought the offense was simply that they put the problem on the back burner and did not pay attention to it, given the strange pronunciation of one day a week. But after 24 hours of setbacks, Psaki was asked to explain these remarks and she doubled down, calling the plan ‘brave and ambitious’. And she stuck to the one-day standard and said they hope to exceed it. Once again, this supposedly brave and ambitious plan was surpassed before the inauguration. Politico Playbook said: “This is a goal that is so modest and unambitious that it is almost meaningless.” President Biden’s ambitious rhetoric around schools has always had a collision course with benefactors of his teachers’ union, who simply do not want schools to reopen fully soon. Not even after teachers were given preference in vaccinations, and K-12 schools received more than $ 68 billion in 2020 to mitigate COVID issues. I just did not expect him to break a promise of a nuclear campaign so early in his presidency. So what does Biden like about not keeping his word? The White House would argue that it is funding, ventilation and class sizes. Let’s look at each one in turn. As mentioned, in 2020, Congress has allocated more than $ 68 billion for COVID mitigation in K-12 schools. So far, most of this money has not been spent. That did not stop Biden’s government from demanding another $ 130 billion. But let’s ignore the current unspent billions of dollars for a moment and ask the essential question: will more funding help? In fact, the schools currently open five days a week in America are parochial schools, which generally fund less per pupil than their public counterparts, and public schools that do not compete with the per pupil’s wealth of closed but good districts such as Chicago, Fairfax County, San Francisco and others. The issue is will, not resources. Ventilation is simply a crutch to excuse for doing nothing. This was a problem identified in early 2020, to reduce the return to school before a coronavirus vaccine became available. The $ 68 billion authorized by Congress provided money specifically for ventilation. But most schools have done little or nothing to improve ventilation in the past year, and it is more likely that we will eventually return to school before thousands of schools that remain closed have made any significant changes. The absence of new ventilation systems did not deter most schools that opened to some extent without disruption. Meanwhile, the focus of the debate on the importance of class size is a way of suggesting that children go to school indefinitely two days a week. The idea is that a full class increases the risk, so we need to halve the class sizes. But no one realistically believes that America will soon double its school building capacity, at least not in the next year. Anyone whose child has been to class in a trailer behind a school building knows that it takes years to develop plans for new buildings, staff, and district lines. The hybrid model of two days a week, with its implicitly smaller class sizes, was created to get children back into the classroom before a vaccine was available. Incompetent school boards continued to delay the end of this temporary measure. After doing so for so long, it is deceptively adopted as the ideal after vaccination. These are simply nuts. After teachers are vaccinated in closed school districts, schools must be open full-time five days a week, just as so many of their peers already do (and as some did before even vaccinations were available). Now that teachers are being vaccinated, for whom are we making these major infrastructure changes anyway? This is not for the teachers whose risk will happily be measured in decimal points soon. And it is not for children – which public health officials regularly remind us repeatedly – is not a major distributor or victim of this virus. The biggest health crises children face today – depression, suicide, lack of confidence, academic failure, lack of socialization, poor nutrition, inadequate exercise – are caused by the closures, not the virus. In September 2020, Joe Biden said: ‘President Trump may not think it’s a national emergency, but I think going back to school for millions of children and the impact on their families and the community is a national emergency. I believe that’s what it is. If it was a national emergency six months ago and one remains today, where is Joe? Some would argue that he should have more time, and that patience is needed. He had only been in the office for a few weeks. But we should not be surprised that many parents simply do not have the patience. Others argue that advocacy for school openings is anti-teacher. This is an easy way to stop debate, because teachers are often underpaid and undervalued and therefore not open to criticism. But I like my kids’ teachers, who do the best. This is about pro-kids, not anti-teachers. In September, President Biden said: ‘Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos did not act. We all see the results. Millions of students are now starting the new school year in the same way they completed last year at home. At home. Parents do their best, but they find themselves increasingly at the end of the day struggling to balance work and childcare and educational duties, or worrying about their lost salary check and how they are going to recover while trying to get their keep children on track with distance education. According to Biden’s current plan, he can not meet the standard he set for Trump. It’s time for Biden to get involved. He has a huge impact on unions and those who advocate for children to remain unattended indefinitely. He has a serious group of public health advisers who can convince nervous parents and teachers of the low risks that are causing them to return to class (especially after a vaccination). As Joe Biden said six months ago on this subject: “Mr. President, where are you? Where are you? Why are you not working on this? Mr. President, this is your job. This is what you need to focus on right now. To get our children back to school safely. ‘