This piece was published today on the New York Review of Books blog. Readers of this blog will be familiar with its contents. Readers of the NYBR blog will learn about the debate about how and when to reopen schools and will learn about how Trump and Pence strong-armed the CDC and forced it to weaken its guidance to schools on reopening.
Trump cares more about his re-election than about the lives of America’s students and school staff. He proved it. Today he tweeted a suggestion that the November elections should be delayed, a decision that belongs to Congress, not to him. You can bet that if Congress agreed (the Democratic House would never agree), there would never be another election in his lifetime. His good friend Putin should won a referendum to keep him in power until 2026. Trump must be envious.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The nation’s CEOs want teachers back in class to free-up workers. This will be deadly. The local unions -not the corporate owned nationals- need to hold fast.
Big fight going on in LA over what teachers will be required to do this “fall” (2 weeks away)
[…]
We are gratified that the district abandoned its risky proposal to require all educators to teach from school sites. This will help protect the health and safety of our members, especially those with health conditions or at-risk family members at home.”
We still have many outstanding issues to bargain, including the length of the work day, the structure of the work day, and UTLA’s proposal for a weekly Student Support Day. For context, here are instructional schedules proposed by UTLA and instructional schedules proposed by LAUSD this week.
[…]
https://www.utla.net/news/-lausd-drops-requirement-teach-virtually-classroom
When in-person learning resumes, there will potentially be stark contrasts in the safety of different districts.
From A teacher in Connecticut: “Echoing throughout “Adapt, Advance, Achieve: Connecticut’s Plan to Learn and Grow Together” is the disconcerting idea of feasibility, which appears 13 times in the document. Reduced class sizes, student cohorts, and single direction hallways and staircases are not mandated, but will be implemented only ‘where feasible.’”
“Salisbury spends $22,909 per student while Bridgeport’s per pupil amount is $14,041. Certainly these two districts’ reopening plans will look quite different and will lead to starkly different outcomes for the people living in those cities.”
“In Salisbury, 83 percent of students are white, and in Bridgeport 87 percent are students of color. The governor and commissioner know exactly which of these school districts will be able to implement their feasibility measures.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/07/23/racist-effects-school-reopening-during-pandemic-by-teacher/
American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second largest teachers union in the US, is trying to limit and isolate the emerging teachers’ struggles. At their biennial convention being held online this week, AFT officials passed a resolution on the reopening of schools, which paid lip service to the safety of educators and students but included no serious actions to oppose the reckless and deadly policy.
Instead, AFT locals “will use every action and tool available to us from serving on state and local reopening committees to filing grievances, lawsuits and other actions against unsafe and unsound plans or the faulty implementation of plans.” According to the resolution they would only support “local and/or state affiliate safety strikes on a case-by-case basis as a last resort.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/30/aftt-j30.html
Trump has to HATE the U.S. Constitution. If he got rid of the U.S. Constitution, his dreams of becoming Putin Jr. would be realized, and Trump’s deplorable Always Trump followers would be able to sign up and join his unmarked army to terrorize Americans everywhere that will never vote for Trump.
The Charles Koch Institute is also behind school reopening. Reopening in general was bankrolled by the Koch-linked Bradley Foundation (reported by the Center for Media and Democracy).
No person has done more to destroy America than Charles Koch and his brother, David, who now resides in hell.
One of my favorite Isaac Bashevis Singer stories is about an angel who has done something wrong in heaven and is sent to hell–which is earth. Have to reread it now to remember where they go when they die on earth!
love this
Speaking of hell, Herman Cain just died! Will Louie be next? We can only hope. Where’s Isaac to write a good story when you need him?
Louie, the Texas congressman, said he got the COVID by wearing a mask. Somehow his mask was infected!
yes: we often know that big money is behind every political action but forget to look for it
Thanks for the frank and well-informed discussion of the Trump/DeVos desire to restore the economy by coercing students, parents, educators and the CDC.
There is nothing rational about the demands to reopen brick and mortar schools while denying federal funds to non-compliant states/districts. Betsy wants those impossible to use funds for public schools converted to tax-credits/vouchers that parents can use for private schools and education service providers. In this respect she really hopes that public brick and mortar schools do not reopen.
Forbes listed the billionaires who are funding Trump’s campaign. Two are board chairs of companies that consumers can punish – Ashley furniture and Clinique cosmetics.
A third funder, John Paulson, is a backer of Success Academies. He was recently in the news for a letter he sent to his daughters’ ($50,000 a year tuition) school chastising it for anti-white bias.
The dump works for Putin. Would love a transcript of his phone calls with Putin.
Putting politics ahead of safety is never a good idea. In many areas Covid is still surging out of control. Opening schools safely should be a priority instead of making students and teachers pawns in Trump’s political ambitions.
You know, Diane, you should really think seriously about taking up this writing thing. You have potential! Very well argued and explained and have sent to friends, especially those who don’t pay attention to education issues.
The great thing about writing for NYRB is that it has a very large audience of readers who are interested in many things, but are typically not teachers or educators. So I am able to reach a very different audience, as Peter Greene does by writing for Forbes.
awesome
Woo hoo! Your article was featured on NYRB’s weekly spotlight email, got it this morning! Forwarding to everyone I sent article link to and a few others.
This is an O’Henry story.
Open schools and pandemic risk skyrockets.
Don’t open schools and parents can’t work or kids are left alone.
Teachers and school staff are “essential workers” and like many essential workers, have kids at home and not in school.
Hospitals have curtailed elective procedures and are dealing only with emergencies and virus.
Schools cannot curtail “electives” and our emergency and necessary instruction cannot be replicated online.
And on top of it all – or the cause of it all – we have a president who denied and still denies there is a pandemic but wants to delay the election because of the pandemic.
Shout it far and wide:
There are two reasons why we are not opening schools:
1. The president who did nothing – and then made it worse.
2. Congress who watched and said nothing.
We could, can, and have no choice but to make school work for kids and families; however as noted in yesterday’s posts here, it really will take an entire community – yes, the village – coordinating efforts. It is good to see some of those creative approaches in the works.
“Don’t open schools and parents can’t work or kids are left alone.”
That last statement is a Flawed and Failed argument, a double “F”.
The reason why this argument fails is because of the fact that even before COVID-19, “About 14 percent of children age 12 and younger are latchkey kids, but they spend only about an hour home alone after school, a new study says.”
https://study.com/academy/lesson/latchkey-kids-definition-effects-statistics.html
The New Latchkey Kids
More than a million grade-schoolers have nobody to take care of them once class lets out. Where have all the after-school programs gone?
https://www.parents.com/kids/safety/tips/the-new-latchkey-kids/
“Every day, children arrive home from school to an empty house. Every week, parents make decisions to leave children home alone while they go to work, run errands, or for social engagements. It is estimated over 40% of children are left home at some time, though rarely overnight. In more extreme situations, some children spend so much time without their parents that these children are labeled ‘latch key children,’ referring to the house or apartment key strung visibly around their neck.”
https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Home-Alone-Children-046.aspx
The problem of home-alone kids has always been there. But wealthier parents have the money to pay for someone to watch their kids when they are working and earning six or seven figure incomes, but not the poor that have always faced this challenge when they have to work two or three jobs just to earn enough to survive.
True – latchkey kids are not new – heck, it’s why middle school and high schools in a lot of districts start earlier than elementary (which is bad for both) so the older kids are home when the little ones get there.
However – this isn’t latchkey – this is either “Home Alone” or kids at home with the millions of adults who lost their jobs and are looking daily.
Take a look at child abuse statistics. They have dropped dramatically. Has child abuse dropped? Well, probably not. Child abuse REPORTS have dropped. Same with “family disturbances.”
Kids need to be in school.
Kids and all adults need to be safe.
Can we do both?
Without the money to pay for what’s needed to make the school environment safe, there is no way to do it.
Need smaller class sizes, need to hire more teachers and have more classrooms to ensure children are spaces apart. Need to have up to date HVAC that works for each classroom.
That don’t come free, and it is not a secret that many of our public schools are old, in BAD shape, and do not have the room for the small class size needed.
If the DOD needs $30 billion to build a new aircraft carrier or another three-hundred billion for hundreds of new stealth jet fighters, the GOP has no problem coming up with the cash, but when money is needed to make our public school safe for our children and teachers, no deal from the GOP.
No, the kids do not need to be in school, because they cannot learn if they are dead and the trauma of being infected and carrying the virus home to kill their friends, parents and grandparents is not worth it.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what is wrong with the thinking of some of the people that live in this country and call themselves human?
Teachers and parents need to brace ourselves. The next front line in Trump’s election-driven assault on democratic institutions will be public education and, more specifically, public school educators and their unions. The battle lines have already been outlined by the Trump campaign: decent, law-abiding middle class parents who want to get the economy moving again (but need reopened schools to get back to work themselves) versus greedy teachers and their unions who want to keep the schools closed but continue getting paid.
The tactics and messaging coming from the White House will have nothing to do with the major public health concern voiced both by teachers and parents, namely that schools should reopen, but only when it can be done in a safe way that protects educators, staff, students and the public. The messaging will have everything to do with Trump’s desperate attempts to shift blame for his criminal mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis — and the economic fallout that ensued — and to drive a wedge between parents and teachers in an effort to shore up his right-wing base and his fundraising.
Trump is so invested in this back-to-school-at-any-cost strategy that he has temporarily scuttled a policy favored by his own Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos: replace teachers with technology — a.k.a. remote learning. “Why do students have to go to a school building in the first place?” DeVos asked rhetorically in 2018. Goodbye brick-and-mortar public schools and the unionized educators and staff that work there.
On July 10 Trump tweeted, “Now that we have witnessed it on a large scale basis, and firsthand, Virtual Learning has proven to be TERRIBLE compared to In School…Not even close! Schools must be open in the Fall.”
With this, Trump made clear, once again, that his re-election takes precedence over any policy considerations, as misguided as they might have been.
It should be no surprise that destroying teachers’ unions and the political power they wield has long been a high priority for right wing libertarian billionaires, such as the Koch brothers. A network of conservative lobbying groups, funded by dark money loosened up by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, has been working to “defund and defang” public sector unions by altering state laws protecting them. They view the destruction of these unions as a “once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left.” Indeed, Republicans in general have viewed the weakening of teachers unions as a priority due to the unions’ political and financial support for the Democratic Party.
Ironically, his new policy of support for school openings and against online learning is one area on which he and educators agree — kind of. We know that children learn in relationship to others, especially respected adults. To establish durable connections with students, face-to-face learning and teaching must be instituted whenever safely possible, especially at the beginning of the school year when trust and a learning culture are being built. What Trump and educators disagree about is how and when face-to-face learning can safely begin.
Trump’s efforts revive his failing re-election campaign by making educators and their unions the bogeymen (bogeywomen?) will face an uphill battle. Indeed, many parents are educators themselves (and vice-versa); and during the Spring of remote learning, most parents developed a greater appreciation of the difficult jobs that educators do. Witness the many expressions of gratitude toward teachers that became popular internet memes.
But creating wedges between different groups of Americans — in this case, educators and parents — is a Trump specialty. There is only one way to prevent this from happening. Parents and educators must find common ground in their mutual desire for a safe reopening of schools. Parents, who tend to speak primarily to other parents about their concerns, and educators, whose discussions rarely include parent groups, must break down the walls and join together to insist on a safe and learning-filled 2020-2021 school year. Let’s talk to each other, and, more importantly, listen. Open up labor negotiations to the community. Make sure we are all focused on facts and evidence. Our children deserve no less.
There’s been puzzlement about why Trump continues to promote Hydroxoxychloroquine. The theory is that he wants people back at work and kids back at school which he thinks will occur rapidly if they think there is a cure i.e. Hydrooxychloroquine.
On this note, Gates wants schools to reopen. The current experience with remote learning (there is a remote chance that children are learning) doesn’t look good for his agenda to turn all teaching into staring at computer screens.
Public school supporters really have to read ed reformers on public schools:
https://www.the74million.org/article/top-devos-deputy-tells-nations-education-reporters-that-pandemic-adds-urgency-to-federal-push-for-private-school-choice/
The top DeVos deputy. Came right out of the ed reform echo chamber- hostile to public schools.
At what point do we ask why we are hiring and paying these public employees when they contribute absolutely nothing to the schools 90% of students attend?
If you’re not reading the people who make up the ed reform echo chamber, you won’t understand what’s happening to your schools. They absolutely dominate elite policy circles, to the exclusion of anyone with an opposing or divergent view.
“Prior to joining the Department, Blew advocated for education reform across the country. His roles included serving as director of the 50CAN affiliate Student Success California, national president of StudentsFirst, and national director of the Alliance for School Choice and its predecessor, the American Education Reform Council.
Blew also helped guide the Walton Family Foundation’s K-12 reform investments for nearly a decade”
50CAN, StudentsFirst, Walton. That’s the ed reform echo chamber and that’s where all the people who work for DeVos came out of. DeVos isn’t some fringe figure in ed reform. It’s all the same stuff all of them recite. As long as this echo chamber dominates public education policy, public school students will the last priority.
A methodical, lawyerly indictment of Trump’s life endangering rush to reopen schools. If only some court sometime in the future will hold him accountable…..
Lawyerly is such a derogatory term! 😄
I have been reading that Trump and Barr are ignoring the courts and doing what they want no matter what the verdict. Besty DeVos is doing the same thing.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump defies Supreme Court and Constitution in census citizenship fight: DNC Chair Perez
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/10/trump-defies-supreme-court-constitution-citizenship-question-column/1681411001/
The Trump Administration has even been Defying the U.S. Supreme Court.
https://prospect.org/justice/trump-administration-defying-the-supreme-court-on-daca/
The Trump administration is refusing to fully reinstate DACA
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/28/21345481/trump-daca-supreme-court-dreamers
Since the only way to hold a president accountable is through an impeachment trial in the House and Senate and Mitch McConnel has made it clear he will run interference in the Senate so Trump will never be found guilty, what else can the country do but wait until November and vote Trump out of office in a landslide like no other in U.S. History.
And if Trump does manage to stop the election as he clearly wants, and the GOP blocks impeachment for that, too, the only recourse will be a Civil War.
Funny, Greg. You know the word ‘lawyerly’ flew off my fingers into the keyboard and I had a bit of the same reaction. But we all need a good lawyer once in a while and someone of the utmost integrity is at the top of my list.
And, on the subject of re-opening…..I heard yesterday from a parent who will keep her kids home from school in Sept. 100%, and her reasoning makes total sense to me,
Then, I drove down the road and listened to another parent who is sending his kids to school (in whatever revised schedule that district is using) and his thinking makes sense to me, too.
Meanwhile, Trump just doesn’t make sense at all, unless you’re watching how a rat behaves on a sinking ship. (And, trying to drag us all down with him.)
“But we all need a good lawyer once in a while and someone of the utmost integrity is at the top of my list.”
I’ve had both, a bad lawyer that would have happily worked for someone like Trump and two good lawyers. The bad lawyer lied to me and deliberately stirred up problems between me and the person I was dealing with so he could ramp up his billing hours. When I found out what he was doing, I tried to fire him. I didn’t know at the time that in California (probably other states, too), you cannot fire your lawyer without their permission. It wasn’t until the local bar association told him he could lose his license to practice law that he agreed to let me fire him and dropped all of his unpaid legal bills that he ran up.
Because of the bad lawyer, later when I needed a lawyer again, I took my time and did my homework to find them. Both were honest and did what they said they could do and charged reasonable fees. One of the two actually talked me out of doing what I wanted to do and saved me tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs. His advice was free and I did was he said. He refused to charge me for that hour of his time, and what he told me to do solved the problem.
That’s frightening when you’re counting on the advice.
Yeah…lawyers….
Enjoy this beautiful day.
Capitulating to the reopening of schools right now is taking a lesson in crisis management from Donald Trump.
Just as Trump the Heedless missed the opportunity, back in February, to set in motion creation of adequate testing and tracing capability and PPE, we are missing the opportunity, right now, by talking about how we might “safely reopen schools,” to be holding the difficult national discussion of what we could do, until we have a vaccine, about conducting learning safely, at a distance, outside school. We need to be addressing what can and cannot be done well online, how to support parents who have kids but have to work, how to supply internet service and computers and meals and safety checks to poor kids. But we’re going to imitate IQ45 and downplay the problem until the disaster is upon us, finding us, like the grasshopper in the children’s story, completely unprepared.
Outstanding article, Diane. The best single piece I’ve yet seen on this subject. Authoritative and information packed. Bravo! I hope it is very, very widely read!
Local teachers unions will not back down. Already, numerous large and urban districts have announced plans for remote instruction in the fall with a cautious, phased in approach to possible in-person instruction. They know the risks first-hand in their school buildings and with their students. But they will need the unwavering support of their national union leaders as some state and local governments put the economy and the Trump agenda before the health and well being of students, teachers and entire communities.Trump’s demand to open school buildings and resume in-person instruction will be, by and large, ignored. The big fights between now and September will be on the local and state levels. Let the lawsuits begin!