Since we first learned about the pandemic in mid-March, we have gotten mixed signals from the federal government. The president said it was a hoax, said it would magically disappear. He mocked mask-wearing. Mike Pence said it would be over by Memorial Day. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed its guidelines, bending to the White House. Then Bob Woodward released interviews with the president, and it turns out he has known since January that COVID is deadly serious, and it is airborne.
Now Trump has COVID. Will his base start wearing masks? Will they stop demonstrating for their freedom to ignore public health regulations?
Steven Singer writes here about Trump’s illness and what it might mean for the schools.
He begins:
It had to happen eventually.
Donald Trump, the ultimate science denier, got bit in the butt by science.
He’s got Coronavirus, and is in Walter Reed National Medical Center fighting for his life.
Apparently the virus isn’t a hoax.
You don’t catch it by testing for it.
You don’t treat it with hydroxychloroquine.
It’s a global pandemic, and the only way to fight something like that is with rationality and logic.
You have to wear a face mask, dumb-ass.
You have to practice social distancing.
You can’t just reopen the economy and pretend that this won’t cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
You can’t steamroll over more than 200,000 Americans lost simply because most are elderly, poor and/or brown skinned. And they don’t matter to you…
Long before Trump went from being a clown to a contender, policymakers tried reforming our schools with only wishful thinking and a marketing plan.
High stakes testing, charter schools, voucher plans, value added measures, Teach for America – whether proposed by Democrats or Republicans, it is all nothing but science denial wrapped in a stock portfolio.
These are the ways Wall Street has cashed in on schools pretending to be saviors while hiding the reality of their vulture capitalism.
And Trump has been no different.
Except that his instrument – billionaire heiress Betsy DeVos – made it harder to deny.
She barely even tried to pretend to be anything other than what she is – an unimaginative opportunist dead set on destroying the public in public schools.
Now that her spray tanned master has – through inaction and ineptitude – unleashed a plague upon the nation, our students are suffering worse than ever.
Many schools are shuttered from sea to shining sea, their students forced to learn via the Internet.
Open the link and read it all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Off topic but, about Covid-
Putin likely has an interest in the severity of Trump’s (and Ron Johnson’s) medical conditions.
Does the public find out about Trump’s loan sources, under the circumstances that he dies and a lawsuit is filed?
This is an excellent, well thought out, post. Singer compares all of Trump’s anti-science beliefs to all the false assumptions about so-called school choice and “accountability.” Both parties are guilty of jumping on the privatization train with no real evidence to support its value. Even now that we understand that so-called choice causes major disruption for no better results, we continue with a one way ticket to nowhere because the wealthy are paying for the ride.
“High stakes testing, charter schools, voucher plans, value added measures, Teach for America – whether proposed by Democrats or Republicans, it is all nothing but science denial wrapped in a stock portfolio.”
Common schools are necessary in a diverse society. Yet, members of both parties continue to undermine the schools that bring people together to promote mutual respect and understanding.
“Instead, leaders deify choice – letting us decide between these different models – without a basic understanding of citizenship, governance or economics.”
Unlike so many members of both parties, Singer understands that a fundamental mission of public education is to produce informed citizens that can vote and work together for the betterment of all of us.
Here’s another excellent article that laments the attempts to standardized education and upend local control. It also provides a useful overview of American education while warning that undermining public education is undermining democracy itself. https://tultican.com/2020/10/01/education-improvement-thwarted-by-reform/
a key point by those who have figured this moment out: to undermine democracy, public schools first have to be attacked, weakened and ultimately disbanded
Once a hoax, always a hoax
I tell you folks
It’s still a hoax
So take no heed
Of Walter Reed
I like the tune that “singer” is singing.
🙂
If it hasn’t already happened, I am convinced that someone like Alex Jones, Hannity, or Limbaugh will start a conspiracy theory that Trump was poisoned by Biden, Obama, or Hillary that would match the symptoms of COVID-19, and Trump’s deplorable minority-white base would fall into line and spread that lie far and wide believing every word.
Poisoned to match the symptoms?
Hell no, he was infected WITH the cov2 virus.
It wasn’t what he ate
That made him “not so great”
They put it in his hat
A MAGA one, at that
I thought everybody already knew that.
Had to bookmark this one.
Singer concludes, “But one thing is undeniable – we cannot continue to live this way.”
Absolutely correct.
We cannot live this way
We cannot live this way
But die? We can and will
There’s nothing left to say
When dying is the pill
I remember my wonderful grandfather muttering that doctors were “pill hills”. I wasn’t sure I heard him right. What?
We were walking on the Atlantic City, NJ boardwalk. “Pill hill, Johnny. You go there and they just give you pills.”
I still hear his voice when I have to take medicine for something.
And, wow, are they throwing pills at Trump. Pills and….whatever!
The Keystone Cops are at it again!
As with every situation from him and the WH, they are inept.
Those who surround him are scared to open their mouths.
Those who protect him are not allowed to open their mouths.
What is most scary about this is if this is how they handle the president getting sick – which IS a security risk – how will they handle any attack, any security breach, any international incidents that put us to risk? These are all sick people.
And him?
Yet another opportunity to lead (ha – he doesn’t know the meaning of the word). Claim it as a revelation or smack in the face, he had a chance to …. lead. All he had to do was borrow from his one objective advisor Chris Christie who pre-hurricane looked in the camera and said, “Get off the hell off the beach!” It worked.
All this president needed to say was, “Ok – from here on out, everyone, wear a mask!”
Instead – stunts. He makes a video about “the coronavirus – or whatever you call it” (code for China virus) and he thanks WORLD LEADERS (code for “I got a telegram from Putin and Jong Il” like a kid who just got a prom date).
And just now – his ride around the block to wave to his supporters.
100% about him, not safety, not science, not America or Americans.
And, of course – one statement from a doctor – a contradictory one from a WH source. WHY AREN”T THESE GUYS LOSING THEIR AMA LICENSES?
So – he’ll get better which statistically should happen. He’ll make speeches “See it is just like the flu. Yes. I was sick. It wasn’t good. But I got better. So open up the schools and the country.”
Trump’s attitude towards masks is all the more curious since he is germaphobic.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/politics/donald-trump-germaphobe-coronavirus/index.html
it is all nothing but science denial wrapped in a stock portfolio
Beautifully put!!!
The high-stakes testing and all that goes with it (third-grade retention, school grading, VAM, etc) is purest numerology. The tests–especially the ones in ELA–are sloppy and invalid, and anyone who can’t see that is too dumb to be in a decision-making role in education.