This post will propose a GRAND BARGAIN for reopening the schools.
There is a great demand to reopen the schools for the sake of the economy, and there is great resistance to reopening the schools due to fears about the safety of children and staff.
Parents and teachers are worried that if schools open too soon, they won’t be safe. Students won’t be safe if classrooms are crowded. If students don’t wear masks, they will be in constant confrontations with teachers. How do you keep very young children six feet apart? What about safety measures to protect the staff? These are all genuine problems.
What makes this entire discussion surreal is that Congress and the Trump administration have thus far refused to pass legislation that would send the aid needed to help schools reopen safely and help local and state governments cope with drastic reductions in revenues due to the shutdown of the economy.
Some states are planning to cut school funding by large amounts. They are willing to lay off teachers and support staff, including nurses. Under these conditions, schools cannot possibly reopen safely and should not.
A few states, like California, plan to hold the school budget where it is, with no cuts.
But to reopen, schools need MORE funding. They must reduce class sizes drastically to have safe social distancing. Depending on room sizes, classrooms should have no more than 10-15 students. To do that means hiring MORE teachers.
The Council of Chief State School Officers has estimated that it will require up to $244 billion in additional federal aid to reopen schools safely. It might be even more. If that is the cost of reopening schools and reopening the economy, it is a price worth paying.
Since the federal government has failed to take the lead in controlling the pandemic, the number of cases of coronavirus continues to rise, unlike the EU or Canada or many other nations. Where the virus is still rising, as in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and other states, schools cannot open safely.
But where the virus has been contained, schools can act on reopening plans only if they are adequately funded.
The only way to reopen schools safely, whether in the fall or months later, is by a dramatic increase in the budget so that there will be enough staff to protect the health and safety of the children, the teachers, and other staff.
Schools will need to hire additional nurses and health aides to monitor the temperature and health of everyone in the school as well as psychologists and social workers to aid students who have suffered trauma in recent months.
Some advocates of distance learning think it should become “the new normal,” but the past few months has demonstrated that not much learning is going on, that students are bored and long to be with their friends and teachers, and that distance learning is at best only a temporary fix.
Parents, business leaders, and everyone concerned about reopening the schools and the economy should together demand that the federal government provide whatever funds are needed to reopen schools safely so parents can return to work knowing that their children are safe. It may or may not happen in September, and there will be regional and local variations, depending on whether the coronavirus has been controlled.
But whenever it happens, the highest priority must be the safety and well-being of children and school staff.
It will not happen safely without a massive increase in funding from the federal government.
It should not happen until that funding has been approved.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for formulating this proposal. I hope teachers and their unions rally behind it and apply pressure to Congress and the president.
Yes, the schools need more, not less, money. However,
in the absence of the capacity to test everyone and do contact tracing of anyone found to be infected, no amount of money is going to make opening schools safe.
This is the problem we should be attempting to solve: how do we test everyone so that we know that there are no infectious people in our schools?
You have it right, Bob. Nothing less will work.
Diane, I think that this proposal is wonderful and would take it even further. As a retired teacher and past School Committee member, I’ve been advocating for federal funding of every school district on a permanent basis. It is ridiculous that small, rural communities and struggling industrial cities are asked to provide the same quality of education as wealthy suburban schools. The pandemic has only heightened our awareness of how short sighted our school funding formula is and has been.
I’ve written to my members of Congress about this once, but will do so again with a link to this article. I’m in Massachusetts, so for the most part, our elected officials are on “our” side.
Thank you for this!
Thank you! The tax-based school funding formula is archaic and leaves many children far behind.
YES!
They waited until July to address the fact that every public school in the country is closed.
Public school students are the dead-last priority in this country. They bailed out airlines, bars and the tourism industry before anyone did any work at all on reopening schools.
The US Department of Education under DeVos still aren’t doing anything. They’re celebrating court decisions expanding vouchers and launching contests. I’m not at all sure they know public schools are closed.
Our political leaders did absolutely nothing and yet the entire dialogue is how SCHOOLS are failing.
Every other country in the world addressed opening their schools FIRST except this one. We don’t value kids and we don’t value education and we show it every day.
I agree. Reality rears its ugly head. As a grandmother and retired teacher who lives with a grown son and his 8th grade daughter, I hope and pray that schools do not attempt to reopen while there is a Republican administration in control of the money.
This is something that makes sense.
However:
Class sizes should be between 10-15 students. I agree. Where are the extra teachers going to come from? Where are the schools who can double or triple the number of classrooms?
Common sense action is what is needed. Schools have been underfunded for years. Unfortunately, expecting help for public schools from the Trump administration is much like whistling in the wind. May sound good but…[Dang. We all know that charter schools are the only ones deserving more money./s]
Even the Trump administration has to recognize that the economy can’t open if schools don’t have the money to open. We have leverage and should use it to demand the necessary resources or not open.
dianeravitch: I agree but how much do politicians listen to teachers? Many teachers in Indiana have had to work 2-3 jobs to survive and nobody in power cared. My state Representative Chris Chyung [D-IN] recognizes the underfunding but he is in the minority.
Gov. Holcomb [R-IN] and Gov. DeSantis [mini-Trump R-FL] have already said schools will open in the fall. Florida is a hot spot and that doesn’t matter.
Reopening without safety measures in place is a suicide pact. Don’t do it.
Gov. Holcomb [R-IN] says some safety measures will be sent to parents. I question the effectiveness. How realistic is opening schools? Each district is supposed to work out problems by themselves.
There is no way classes will be 10-15 which is ideal. Constant underfunding in the past will have serious repercussions.
This is where the adminimals start putting out orders.
No response at all from the federal government, so let’s check in with the 20,000 full time paid critics of public schools who make up the “ed reform movement”:
https://www.iwf.org/2020/07/01/if-schools-dont-open-in-the-fall-funding-should-follow-the-child/
Should public schools exist at all? That’s their contribution to the crisis. So that’s helpful.
If schools open it will be a miracle and it will be SOLELY the result of the work public schools themselves do. No one is going to help. They don’t care and they’re ideologically opposed to the existence of your schools anyway.
The so-called “reformers” are paid to lobby against the. Dry existence of public schools. That’s their job. Don’t be surprised when they do it.
This organization lobbies against the very idea of “public,” period.
The Independent Women’s Forum attacked paid leave proposals to allow workers time off during an unprecedented global pandemic, calling such proposals “radical” and part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “far-Left grabbag of ideas.” IWF has also attacked Democratic governors as “Little Tyrants” for issuing stay-at-home orders urged by disease control experts
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Independent_Women%27s_Forum
Will this be brought to the attention of Biden’s education advisors? Seems the basis for a major policy speech and initiative.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum.
Not as a personal jab at you GregB but at the thought that Biden, he of the administration that gave us Blahrney Duncan and Race to the Top, would do anything even remotely beneficial for the majority of this nation’s students. A zebra can’t change its stripes. . . unless it is the the Fruit Stripe Zebra.
Metaphorical zebras have indeed been known to change stripes: Ike sent federal troops to enforce desegregation laws, JFK introduced the Civil Rights Act, Nixon went to China, Bush I raised taxes; there are many examples, nothing is written in stone other than the Idiot’s bigotry. Politics (as is life) is a process. In fact, I know of someone who supported the idea of charter schools who learned from actual experience to change her mind and forge a community that diametrically opposes something she once championed. Strange how people can learn and change their views.
These are reasonable suggestions for opening schools. If we were dealing with reasonable people, the federal government would be taking the lead and providing additional funds in order to open school. The current leadership wants to destroy our public schools so I doubt any meaningful support will be coming from this administration. Parents, students and teachers are caught in the middle of an untenable situation.
and a situation made specifically untenable in that the federal government is leading the way to pandemic safety by NOT leading the way: their latest approach is only “learn to live with it.”
Trump response to pandemic:
Ignore it. It will magically disappear one day. Besides, 99% of cases are “totally harmless.” Exact literal quote.
There are NO reasonable suggestions until all of the epidemological safety parameters are met. And we’re many months away from that IF there were a desire and push to do so. But. . . that desire and push isn’t there. So. . . it leaves us with the only sane choice to not put students in harms way and not open schools until those parameters are met.
Good morning everyone,
This is a concerning article regarding how the virus is spread. We learn more and more everyday.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/coronavirus-airborne-transmission-letter/index.html
Mamie Krupczak Allegretti; I thought this was common knowledge. Guess it isn’t.
Don’t forget that CNN is at the top of the list for Trump’s ‘fake news’ media. Warning people who believe in the “Chosen One” wouldn’t work since they believe far right blather. SICK!!
[One Trump supporter yesterday told me that people in the overly crowed beaches in NY over the 4th would be okay because sunlight destroys the virus.]
I really wonder if this country will ever get it under control. There are too many people who follow the Orange Virus…don’t need masks nor social distancing.
“For the sake of the economy” is not the only reason there is demand to re-open schools. Children’s mental health has been suffering while they’re locked in with only their own families, away from their friends, unable to play and socialize. The risk to mental health (and even physical health aside from the virus – obesity, for instance), balance if not outweigh the minimal risk to children from the disease. Again, out of 73 million American children, a few hundred have suffered severe effects of the disease – far fewer than die in car crashes every year. Yes, there are risks to teachers, and yes, there are risks of children carrying the disease home to vulnerable family members – I’m not overlooking that. But it’s insulting to suggest that everyone who wants schools to re-open is concerned about Wall Street.
And yet you blow off the risk to teachers, family members, and communities. Yes, it is important for kids to get back to school. But does it HAVE to be done in a month or six weeks? Does it have to be done with no regard for staff? That’s what’s happening in the district in which I teach. Nearly no mention of high risk staff, only 10 days of additional sick leave for Covid only reasons, and full classrooms, with no alternative plans if cases spike.
Maybe I hit the post button too quickly. I should have said something like, “Yes, there are risks to teachers, and yes, there are risks of children carrying the disease home to vulnerable family members – I’m not overlooking that.”
Anyway, I made no point about whether or not schools should open. My point was, ““For the sake of the economy” is not the only reason there is demand to re-open schools.” Too many times I see a nasty habit on this blog of ascribing nefarious motives to people with differing opinions. The world looks different to different people. That does not make any of those people evil. For families of children who are withering in confinement and isolation, that becomes more of a concern than the disease. That has nothing to do with the economy.
dienne77: “For families of children who are withering in confinement and isolation, that becomes more of a concern than the disease.”
It probably goes back to what the parents think. If this COVID-19 is going to ‘magically disappear’ and there is no need to wear a mask or do any social distancing [Trump supporters], then confinement and isolation are more of a concern than the disease.
If, however, the parents know that this disease is being spread through droplets and that a high percentage of carriers are asymptomatic, then parents will grit their teeth but not want their children to catch the virus in an enclosed school setting, and would NOT be more concerned about the confinement and isolation than the disease.
I wonder how children survived the mental torture of being at home with parents before there was mandatory schooling?
Can’t agree with you on that mental health aspect, Dienne. I’ve seen it brought it in many other places and, personally, I believe it is the adults who are projecting those supposed ill mental health effects onto the children.
This is utter fantasy. On a purely practical level, there aren’t enough classrooms in any existing school to socially distance. The real estate doesn’t exist. Forget that it would be extremely difficult to keep children 6 feet apart throughout a school day. No school or district has the physical capacity to accommodate the 6 foot rule — even if you reduced class size by half. In what world have our students been sitting at desks and tables 3 feet apart?
Even if kids attended every other day, so that classrooms were half full, those rooms would still be enclosed spaces with kids and teachers breathing into them for six hours a day. Little Coronavirus Exposure Chambers.
This talk of reopening without being able to test everyone is insane.
Insane.
Here’s the US Dept of Education website:
https://www.ed.gov/
Other than a small box at the bottom there is no mention of the virus at all.
Just amazing- every student in the country has no idea if they are going back to school next year, not just every K-12 student but also every college student, and the federal entity that is labeled “education” are working as hard as they can to pretend it isn’t happening.
We can talk about how some public schools have or will fail in this crisis. But if we’re going to do that I think we should also talk about how the entire political and policy leadership of “education” has also failed. They’re not working on it at all.
Though I have the luxury of being retired and no longer have my own kids in school, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that we cannot safely re-open schools in the next several weeks. Once schools re-open, can we be assured they will close if a cafeteria worker tests positive, or a bus driver, or a teacher who services all kids in a school, like a PE teacher, or a school nurse? I honestly don’t think so; teachers have little reason to trust political decisions, given no one listens to us in ordinary circumstances.
Here’s a response from Tracy Novick to MA’s state education department’s proposal which literally is about re-arranging seats. There’s also a moratorium on distribution of funding that we won after a long struggle under the Student Opportunity Act, and DESE has directed that school districts must pay for and provide their own PPE.
https://who-cester.blogspot.com/2020/07/dese-room-diagrams.html
Here’s a thread from a Charlottesville City public schools teacher:
And here’s one straight-forward question from a Boston middle school teacher; not holding my breath for an answer.
And what about those of us in schools with NO school nurses? Nearly 1000 students in the school in which I teach. We share a nurse with 4 other similarly sized schools. I have never even seen her.
TOW,
Your district intends to open school with no safety measures in place. Don’t. Every teacher and parent should say no.
No amount of money can fix the air flow issues in nearly all classrooms.
Classrooms are notorious petri dishes for all sorts of germs.
Veteran teachers may not get sick quite as frequently as newer teachers due to built up immunity.
There is no immunity guarantee with this new virus.
So, opening schools “safely” even with smaller class sizes and some attempt at social distancing furniture is an oxymoronic concept.
Inconvenient Truth Bulletin: There is no safe reopening at this time.
Yup. I said it.
Until there are successful ways to protect teachers and other adult staff, school buildings can’t “safely reopen.”
Unless you want to also loudly proclaim – “We need our national babysitting force back at work.”
Because parents having childcare is the driving force behind most arguments to reopen schools.
Education is barely a wisp of a priority.
Or we would see so many other things put into place – increased funding for everything needed to run a school system, real training for the inevitable return to at least part time distance learning when cases spike, increased pay for substitute teachers to cover classroom teachers who usually work through illnesses but will stay home now at any sign of any potential symptom, full-time contact tracing, increased health professionals in ALL buildings, to name a few.
And anyone who keeps saying we have to get kids “back to school” for their mental health, is living in fantasy land.
No matter how they reopen, if they reopen, schools will be drastically different.
The change students face could actually cause trauma as kids are told to stay put at their seats, not to mingle with long-lost friends, not to speak too much, not to travel in the halls unless absolutely necessary, not to…not to…not to…
Teaching will look more like classrooms of old with a teacher in the front of the room and kids working independently at their desks (behind shields?)
Desks/tables will have to be spaced out to provide a modicum of social distancing.
Group work will be near impossible.
Using the bathroom? Not sure how that will work.
Sneezing? Coughing? How does that work with kids in masks?
Music class gone because singing is an indisputable spreader?
If Music class is gone, what about classrooms where kids might talk excessively? Laugh even? (more super spreading behavior.)
And how does a teacher focus on teaching and learning when they have to become mask police?
Or when they’re suffering their own trauma?
If anyone has been in a classroom recently, especially during fire/lockdown/shelter drills, you must know that any plan to reopen physical buildings is throwing teachers to the wolves.
But maybe that’s what this country is actually saying.
Parents need their childcare.
Our country hasn’t figured out a way to provide that other than through our underfunded school systems.
Even those of you who spend your days on this wonderful blog “supporting” public education but now espouse “safe ways” to reopen in September are throwing us to the wolves.
This is indeed an existential nightmare/disaster/sh-t show.
Teachers can be brilliant problem solvers.
But I’ve yet to see a truly workable solution to this problem that includes teacher safety as a top priority.
Glad to hear yours, though…
Good morning, students! We’re going to have an excellent year, those of us who survive.
Before we get started, let me remind you to keep your mask on and to text me if you have a question, and I’ll try to help you by texting back because, of course, I can’t approach within six feet of you.
Oh, and keep six feet between you and every other student when you walk to the white board or to the pencil sharpener because of course, that’s going to make a huge difference given that you are spending your days inside closed Coronavirus Exposure Chambers, uh, classrooms, full of airborne particles from the 168 kids who spend time here during a given day.
Here’s hoping your parents have health insurance. Yeah, I know, this is the United States. A lot of you don’t. What can I say? Those are the breaks!
Oh, and the administration has asked me to remind you that face masks printed with Skulls will not be allowed, however appropriate those might be given the circumstances.
And Marcus, stop flipping your mask at Yolanda and put it back on your face. Chandra, over your mouth and nose, not on top of your head.
In California and in the left leaning Bay Area, we do not have the money or will to increase school budgets, hire nurses for every school, or create a strategic plan that can be implemented across districts or at different grade levels. California has up to 40 students in a class in a normal budget year in many of its school districts. While our Covid-19 rates are climbing this summer, there is no agreement between teachers and parents about reopening in-person schools, and local districts are left to figure out a safe reopening plan on their own. With little evidence-based guidance from local health officials, our school board meetings are long, angry, chaotic, and divisive. There is no way to safely return to physical schools and Distance Learning is a poor substitute for most students. But, it is the only option for now, and teachers are asking for the time and support to plan for Distance Learning during the precious few weeks before the new school year begins. An Oakland Unified teacher has written a brilliant essay on why we cannot return to school and most recently has written a compelling argument on why teachers must not sacrifice themselves in the absence of a robust pandemic response and when to reopen them safely (answer- after no new cases in your county for 14 days). I couldn’t agree more. https://medium.com/@harley.litzelman/teachers-refuse-to-return-to-campus-b9afa039ef2e
Makes sense to me.
But that’s why I read this blog and avoid much of the crap on the internet.
Diane makes sense. Most of you usually make sense.
BTW did you see this item about “pooled” testing? And, why wasn’t the U.S. doing this already?
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/505959-four-tampa-area-hospitals-at-maximum-icu-capacity
In related news, the Treasury just released the names of all the charter school companies that double-dipped in Paycheck Protection Program loans while also sapping funding for public schools.
We must also keep in mind that the experts expect a likely new wave of cases with the next flu season – which comes not long after schools traditionally begin a new year.
Sounds like a devil’s bargain to me.
The guaranteed deaths and concomitant morbidities of many innocent children that will result from prematurely opening schools before all the necessary epidemiological safety parameters are met, and that everyone should know will occur are enough to not open the schools for in person instruction.
The unequal, unjust, unfair access to technology should be enough to nix the “robust remote training” nonsense that we are hearing.
Free the Children!
Let them be free to learn whatever they want for the fall semester. Or not learn any schooling knowledge if they choose.
Let’s pass a law that states that if there is a death or student disabled with serious morbidities from catching Covid at a school, all of the board members, and adminimals be hung at noon on the next day.
God I love this country so willing to kill its innocent children so that the “economy can get moving along”. Don’t know why I’m so surprised at that as this country has been killing innocent children around the world for many decades now. Americans didn’t give a sh!t then and most don’t now with killing innocent Americans.
Teachers and their unions are going to be forced to stand up for themselves and their students in refusing to return to school when there is in fact no real plan that safeguards everyone’s health. This will let others off the hook and make those selfish teachers unions the bad guys who wouldn’t help restart the economy just because they were not willing to expose themselves and their students to a deadly virus for which there is no vaccine and for which the majority of the population has not been tested.
Floriduh’s ed commissioner has mandated all schools must reopen a minimum of five days a week beginning in August.
6,336 new cases reported today over a population of 21,477,000.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2020/07/06/florida-education-commissioner-mandates-all-schools-must-reopen-campuses-in-fall/?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
Idiots
Richard Corcoran, Florida’s Commissioner of education, wants every child to have a voucher. That’s what he said when he was Speaker of the House. Maybe he wants to open the schools to kill the children and teachers.
Doesn’t seem that farfetched…
How does this help? Is the maximum reopening for seven days a week?!
As usual, well done, leaders of the Land of the Chads.
I just received this message from a friend who lives in Miami:
From Miami-Dade County Public Schools: Union message—- More cases of Virus. Going back to Phase 1. As of now—Schools will be Virtual. Schools can not open until cases decrease and we go to Phase 2 or 3. So schools will NOT be opening–
The Chicago Teachers Union weighs in; long twitter thread.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools asks parents to choose their children’s fall plan
Parents/guardians have until Friday to complete questionnaire
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Parents and guardians of children who attend public schools in Miami-Dade County are asked to complete a questionnaire this week that indicates their children’s fall enrollment plan.
The school district’s tentative reopening plan will be enacted once Miami-Dade County is in Phase 2 of The Plan for Florida’s Recovery, however the county is still in Phase 1.
On the questionnaire, parents will indicate whether they intend to have their child return to school in the fall for up to five days a week or whether they want their children to continue full-time online learning.
If they choose to send their children to school, school officials said parents must understand that their child’s school may be operating through a hybrid model, blending on-campus learning and distance learning.
“My School Online (MSO) is M-DCPS’ distance learning option for those students in grades K-12 who wish to take online classes full-time but still maintain their connection to their enrolled schools,” an email from the school district stated. “Its design is based on feedback received from parents on distance learning during the recent school closures. It incorporates many of the features that parents and students valued, such as a single online platform to access digital course content, and virtual real-time interaction with teachers each day for every class.”
Parents will have until Friday to complete the questionnaire, which they can find on the Parent Portal or the Dadeschools Mobile app…
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/07/06/miami-dade-county-public-schools-asks-parents-to-choose-their-childrens-2020-21-school-plan/
Here’s petition on school reopening:
“We demand that our cities, counties, states, and federal government implement the public health measures that should have been widely implemented months ago to stop the growth of this pandemic, including but not limited to:
Mass testing of both symptomatic and asymptomatic people,
Nationwide contact tracing,
Mandatory mask requirements,
Suspension of all non-essential travel, and
Suspension of all non-essential business activity…”
https://www.change.org/p/u-s-department-of-education-refuse-to-return-to-campus-until-counties-report-no-new-cases-for-14-days?recruiter=25958176&recruited_by_id=772193b0-c57e-012f-1bc6-40401bfb750c&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard
Christine Langhoff: Thanks. I signed it and passed it onward to others.
WHAT A MESS!!
This state is a disgusting MESS! It’s run by Republicans.
………………………………..
Some Indiana schools will reopen without a full-time nurse, raising concerns
Before the pandemic closed buildings, not every school in Indiana had a dedicated, full-time nurse, according to officials. The state only requires that each district have at least one, even if it includes multiple buildings. And advocates say many districts don’t meet the nationally recommended ratio of one nurse for every 750 students….
It’s difficult to get a sense of exactly how many of Indiana’s thousands of schools are without a nurse, because the state only tracks the number of certified nurses employed by district.
In this post a New York City public school teacher reacts to the American Academy of Pediatrics call to re-open the schools, by saying there’s more to the report than just reopen.
“Currently, the AAP guidelines are being treated as a blank check for schools to move forward with reopening plans rather than as a call to fundamentally alter our priorities. If this is not clarified, then these recommendations will end up doing more harm than good.
Instead, the AAP guidelines should be read as a call to prioritize the needs of children and families. This would mean hitting the brakes on moves to reopen the economy and instead prioritizing essential services and finding ways to meet the pressing social, emotional and physical needs of children. It would mean abandoning the idea that we can just “return to normal” and all of the expectations that involves and instead beginning to re-examine our priorities.
This would have to start with funding. It requires providing economic and social support for non-essential workers to stay at home or work remotely. And it means infusing our schools with billions of dollars to lower class sizes and hire more teachers, counselors and nurses.”
View at Medium.com
Absolutely right, correct and on point.
If there is no school, should teachers get half pay and give the rest to students and their families? If there is talk of valuing life over money, then this shouldn’t be a problem.
Where’s the economic fairness? If there is no school, should teachers log on to computers with tracking software and cameras like many employees who now have to work from home?
If college students want reduced tuition for online learning, then obviously everyone recognizes their economic skin in the game. So what about parents, shouldn’t they get a five or ten thousand dollar check for the burden of providing a schoolroom and supervision for their children during the day?
If teachers are vulnerable, what about the rest of critical employees? Shouldn’t grocery workers and other employees that have to interact with numerous coworkers and the general public get double pay for the hazard?
Some of the people who aren’t working just got a 10K bonus for four months in the form of the added $600 per week of extra unemployment.
This is a lottery economy, and all rationality has fallen by the wayside.
If teachers can get a year of full pay to stay at home and have parents take on that burden for free, then so be it, but by my measure, civilization rests on the social contract of economic fairness and this concept and state budgets will soon be at the point of disintegration.
If the world has to be shut down for a year, who pays for this? Is everyone willing to send 50K of their net worth to the government to pay for this? Talk is cheap, where is the financial skin in the game to pay for this grand experiment?
If the federal government can find the money to hand out billions to banks, corporations, law firms, and politically connected elites, surely it can find the money to protect the nation’s children and teachers.
Your solution to the problem is do nothing and hope the federal government takes care of things. In which case they don’t you have only added to the problem.