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Newsweek: Teachers Resigning to Avoid COVID

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2020 //
38

The most important concern about reopening schools is the health and safety of students and staff. The Trump administration has adamantly refused to provide funding to states and cities to enable them to make schools as safe as they should be.

As a result, Newsweek reports, significant numbers of teachers are quitting. This is a blow to students and schools across the nation.

It was hard to recruit teachers before the pandemic. How will these teachers be replaced?

Veteran K-12 teachers in states across the U.S. are resigning and retiring at higher rates as schools begin reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic this fall, with educators citing the stress tied to remote learning, technical difficulties and COVID-19 health concerns.

Several teachers who recently resigned, retired or opted out of their jobs ahead of pandemic reopening efforts say leaving their kids has been hard, but remote learning has made their jobs too difficult. One Florida teacher said she became paranoid due to the constant requirement of being live-streamed to dozens of students throughout all hours of the day. And an Arizona high school science teacher said he resigned from a job he loves after his district voted to return students to in-person classroom learning—creating a health risk he and many other teachers say they aren’t willing to take.

In New York State, teacher retirements are up 20 percent from 2019, according to data from the New York State Teacher Retirement System. About 650 teachers filed for retirement between July and early August alone.

A number of K-12 teachers said much of the joy they received from personal interaction with students has been undermined or eliminated altogether by teaching through a computer screen rather than a classroom.

“I had to consider the health of my family. I am a science teacher. We gather evidence and we make decisions. If there is competing data, we look at both and weigh them,” Kevin Fairhurst, who resigned from his teaching position at Arizona’s Queen Creek Unified School District on August 13, told Healthline. “The data from the experts in our health field suggested we should not yet be teaching in person because of the potential for this to cause more outbreaks.”

Fairhurst is among nine of 17 science teachers at two of the district’s high schools who have quit in the past few months. Students and teachers at school districts around the country receive daily temperature checks and are required to wear masks—even on recess playgrounds—as administrators are aiming to eliminate the chance of spreading COVID-19.

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers

Britain Will Open Schools Amid Uncertainty

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2020 //
10

This story by Stephen Castle appeared in the New York Times:

LONDON — When pupils return to Southend High School For Boys next week, the cafeteria will serve takeout food only and lunch will be eaten outside. Lessons will stretch to two-and-a-half hours to reduce the need to switch classrooms. And new equipment has been bought to spray the sports changing rooms with disinfectant.

“By and large, we are pretty ready to roll,” said Robin Bevan, the school’s head teacher, or principal, as he prepared to welcome 1,300 young people to a building about 40 miles east of London, constructed around a century ago without social distancing in mind.

But there is only so much anyone can do.

“The question, ‘Will schools be safe?’ is a slightly crazy question because nothing in life is safe,” said Mr. Bevan. “The real question is, ‘How far have you reduced the risk?’”

Britain is at a critical moment in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic as millions of pupils return to the classrooms, many for the first time since March, when the country went into lockdown.

The resumption of schooling will be crucial for young people who have fallen behind in their studies, and the government hopes it will spur economic recovery by allowing parents to return to work in deserted town and city centers.

But the move also risks a new spike in infections, as young people and teachers mix together. And overseeing the process is an existential political test for the embattled education secretary, Gavin Williamson, who presided over the chaotic awarding of examination results this summer.

“It’s a very, very, difficult situation where you are genuinely trying to balance the needs of a younger generation with the health needs of society,” said Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, a research institute.

Few deny that children need to be back in school and that those from poorer backgrounds with inadequate internet access or none at all have suffered the most, deepening the country’s socio-economic divide. Policymakers worry about the psychological impact on children of the lockdown and, in some cases, their increased exposure to domestic abuse.

“There is a great deal of good will from schools, the majority of parents and most kids, keen to get back” Ms. Francis said, adding that, without a return, there is a risk of “seeing a generation of children blighted by the knock-on effects of Covid.”

Even during the lockdown schools remained open to children of essential workers and those deemed vulnerable. But not too many parents took advantage of it, and a government plan to get all younger pupils in England back before the summer break fell apart.

This time, there is cautious optimism that, despite nervousness among some parents, most children will attend, as they have done in Scotland, where schools reopened earlier in the month.

But the relationship between the government and teachers is fraught. In June, Prime Minister Boris Johnson attacked “left-wing” trade unions, accusing them of obstructing a return to the classroom.

For their part, teachers’ leaders accuse the government of serial incompetence. Repeatedly, they say, they have pointed out practical concerns, been brushed aside, then proved right.

Studies suggest that children are less susceptible to Covid-19 than adults. But there is a bigger risk to teachers and to the families of pupils who may unwittingly carry the virus, particularly people with existing medical conditions.

At Mr. Bevan’s school, pupils will sit facing forward, with groups of students kept together in “bubbles” and staggered start and finishing times for lessons. But in schools for younger children or those with special needs, that is not practical. So head teachers have had to do their best.

“At a time when the government has been dithering, what local school leaders have done is work out a pragmatic solution in their setting,” Mr. Bevan said.

It is a message echoed by Jules White, organizer of a campaign for more resources for schools and called WorthLess?

“Schools are well prepared, we do know how to follow guidance, but there are a lot of factors. If you have 30 children in a classroom, the idea that you can always have two-meter distancing — well, that isn’t going to happen,” said Mr. White, who is head teacher of Tanbridge House School in West Sussex, in the south of England.

“You can mitigate risk by having desks forward facing, having separate equipment,” Mr. White added. “The job of teachers and head teachers is to make people feel safe.”

At his school, two cleaners will work during the school day, rather than after it, to improve hygiene around the clock. Hand sanitizer has been bought at a cost of £3,500, about $4,500, and drama, sports and other extracurricular activities have been put on hold.

But Covid-19, he added, is “a multi-headed monster,” he said. “You hit one thing and another comes up.”

Categories Health, International, Safety

Jan Resseger: A Second Federal Judge Blocks DeVos’ Plan to Divert CARES Money to Private Schools

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2020 //
8

Congress passed the CARES Act and included over $13 billion to public schools. DeVos issued a rule requiring that public schools share that money with private schools. Meanwhile, another $660 BILLION in the CARES Act was allotted to the Paycheck Protection Plan to protect small businesses and nonprofit organizations from going bankrupt; public schools were not allowed to apply for PPP, but charter schools and private schools were and did.

Public schools sued to prevent DeVos from compelling them to share their money with private schools (which already enjoyed the bounty of PPP).

Her rule has now been knocked out by two different federal judges. Jan Resseger writes here about the efforts to demand fair play for public schools, which enroll 85-90% of the nation’s students.

While the Republican Party announced the themes of the Republican Convention—“Monday is ‘Land of Promise,’ Tuesday is ‘Land of Opportunity,’ Wednesday is ‘Land of Heroes’ and Thursday is ‘Land of Greatness.'”—the Convention instead dramatized a very old theme: the difference between appearance and reality. Producers, including people from The Apprentice, put together a spectacular show draped in flags. Their purpose: to distract, distort, and dissemble.

The Convention hardly touched on education policy. But last night in his acceptance speech, the President claimed he will “expand charter schools and provide school choice for every family in America.” Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Tim Scott, (R-SC) also extolled school choice as the future of education, even as, ironically, President Trump himself and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are demanding that the nation’s 90,000 public schools reopen as the only path to getting America’s parents back to work. Trump and DeVos certainly haven’t been counting on their favorite patchwork of charter schools and private schools to accomplish their systemic goal. The convention’s primary education speaker, Rebecca Friedrichs, the lead plaintiff in an anti-teachers union case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, not surprisingly, attacked teachers unions. Although she claimed that the unions “are subverting our republic, so they undermine educational excellence, morality, law and order,” you will remember that instead a wave of #Red4Ed strikes during 2018-2019 pushed states like West Virginia and Oklahoma to increase school funding at least a little bit and forced Los Angeles, Oakland, and Chicago to address unreasonable conditions including class sizes of 40 students and a dearth of school counselors in public schools serving concentrations of our nation’s poorest students.

While the Republicans held their convention, Betsy DeVos herself wasn’t having such a good week. She was left off the Convention agenda, and on Tuesday, the Savannah Morning News reported that she visited a reopened public school in Forsyth County, Georgia, where she made a speech: “I think it’s been good that schools are committed to reopening… I know there have been a couple of schools that have had more incidences of students with the virus. The CDC has been very helpful in providing a lot of information and recommendations for how to go about going back to school., and we highly suggest referencing them.” The newspaper countered DeVos’s comment with an analysis by Georgia State University public health professor, Dr. Harry J. Heiman: “According to the White House Coronavirus Taskforce, we are the second worst state in the country for coronavirus transmission… To suggest that not having a mask mandate is a responsible approach, especially for older students, reflects Secretary DeVos’ lack of understanding about both CDC guidelines and the measures necessary to ensure the health and safety of students, teachers, and staff.”

And on Monday, a Florida judge blocked a requirement announced on July 6 by Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran that public schools reopen five days a week for any families who do not opt for virtual learning. The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss reports that Corcoran threatened any districts refusing to reopen with a loss of state funding. Trump and DeVos’s pressure on governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, has in this case created confusion just as schools are trying to manage the complexities of educating children in the midst of an uncontrolled pandemic. Strauss quotes Orange County school board member Karen Castor Dentel: “We were under threat of losing our funding and forced to develop models that are illogical and not based on what’s best for kids. But we had to go forward…. I wish the ruling came sooner. Not just that our kids are back in school but in the whole planning stages. We were planning another model that was developmentally and educationally sound and we had to scrap that.” And to add more confusion: DeSantis says he intends to appeal the judge’s ruling.

But the most important public education news is that the second judge this week has now blocked Betsy DeVos’s binding guidance that drove school districts to set aside more than expected federal CARES Act dollars for private schools.

Politico’s Michael Stratford reports: “A federal judge in California on Wednesday halted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ effort to boost emergency coronavirus relief for private school students. The court ruling blocks DeVos from implementing or enforcing her rule in at least eight states and some of the nation’s largest public school districts. The secretary’s policy requires public school districts to send a greater share of their CARES Act… pandemic assistance funding to private school students than is typically required under federal law. U.S. District Judge James Donato’s order prevents DeVos from carrying out her policy in a large swath of the country: Michigan, California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia as well as for public school districts in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco.”

Just last Friday, another federal judge in Washington state, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara J. Rothstein, issued a similar preliminary injunction blocking Betsy DeVos’s binding guidance that federal CARES Act dollars be diverted from the public schools serving poor children to cover the educational needs of students in private schools regardless of the private school students’ family income.

In the statutory language of the CARES Act, Congress directed that CARES Act public education relief be distributed in accordance with the method of the Title I Formula, which awards federal funds to supplement educational programming in public school districts serving concentrations of low-income children. Public school districts receiving Title I dollars are also expected to provide Title I services to impoverished students attending the private schools located within their district boundaries. In the binding guidance she imposed in July, DeVos demanded that per-pupil CARES Act relief for private schools be based on each private school’s full enrollment, not merely on the number of the private school students who qualify for additional services because their families are living below 185 percent of the federal poverty line.

Education Week‘s Andrew Ujifusa elaborates on the meaning of Betsy DeVos’s binding rule, whose enforcement two federal district court judges have now blocked: “The Education Department’s interim final rule, publicized in June and formally issued in July, pushes school districts to reserve money under the CARES Act, the federal coronavirus stimulus plan, for services to all local private school students, irrespective of their backgrounds. That represents a major departure from how education law typically governs that arrangement, in which federal money for what’s known as ‘equitable services’ goes to disadvantaged, at-risk private school students.”

Stratford explores what this week’s court rulings will mean: “The pair of rulings amounts to a major setback for DeVos as she seeks to oversee the roughly $16 billion pot of emergency assistance Congress laid out for K-12 schools in the CARES Act in March… The Trump administration argues that it has the authority to create policy dictating public distribution of the funding to private school students because the CARES Act is ambiguous on that point. But the two judges disagree… Donato ruled that DeVos’ policy is likely to be struck down because she lacks the legal authority to impose her own conditions on coronavirus relief funding for K-12 schools. The judge said Congress’ intent ‘is plain as day’ for how CARES Act funding should be distributed to schools. The judge also said the coronavirus relief law ‘unambiguously’ instructs the funding to be distributed to private school students in the typical manner under federal law based on the number of low-income students.”

Categories Accountability, Equity, Funding, Health, Safety, U.S. Department of Education

Carol Burris: New York City Public Schools Should Re-Open

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2020 //
101

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and a retired high school principal and a grandmother, argues in this article that public schools in New York City should reopen. She speaks for herself, not for the Network for Public Education. NPE issued a statement calling for additional federal funds to enable the safe reopening of schools. NPE put the emphasis on the necessity to protect the health and safety of students and staff before reopening. Just for the record, I personally am super-cautious about when it is safe to reopen (I don’t know), but my son who has a second grade child in public school is eager for schools to reopen. These are important discussions. There is no clear answer because none of us knows what might happen in a few weeks or months. Take it as a given that we share the same goals: the safe reopening of schools and a return to in-person learning. The only points of difference–and they are important– is when to reopen and how to determine whether the schools are safe for students and adults alike.

Carol argues that it is time for schools in New York City, which has a very low positivity rate, to reopen.

She writes:

No one knows with certainty whether New York City public schools can successfully remain open this fall. Some believe a second wave of the virus will overwhelm us, and others believe, for the five boroughs at least, the worst is past.

What is not an unsettled question, however, is the harm to New York’s children if they continue to learn exclusively online. The evidence of remote learning’s ineffectiveness is well established. For years, researchers have studied remote education via online charter schools, and from that research, we know what to expect.

The most comprehensive study of K-12 online schools was the 2015 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University (CREDO). That study concluded that students at full-time online charter schools fell far behind similar students in district public schools or traditional charter schools, equivalent to receiving 180 fewer days of learning in math and 72 fewer days in reading.

Macke Raymond, CREDO director, said that the gains in math were so small, it was “literally as though the student did not go to school for the entire year.”

A 2019 study of Pennsylvania online schools confirmed those results. It found that when compared with public school peers who were learning in person, online students lost “the annual equivalent of 106 days of learning in reading and 118 days in math.”

When it comes to graduating high school students in four years, online learning has terrible results. Half of all online high schools’ graduation rates are below 50%. These failing schools enrolled three in four online students.

Keep in mind, the above results are from a sector with considerable experience in remote learning and a student body whose families actively sought it.
For our youngest students, online learning is especially problematic. It goes against all of the research regarding how young children learn. Experts also warn us of the dangers of electronic screen time to the development of memory, language and thinking skills, in addition to its association with vision disorders and obesity.
Finally, we must consider our experience with remote learning since COVID to date. When I was a teacher, we had an expression, “You can’t teach an empty seat.” That holds true even when the seat is on the other side of a screen. As of May 27, The Boston Globe reported that 20% of all Boston students were “virtual dropouts,” not logging in since the beginning of that month. More than one month into the pandemic, thousands of California students could not be accounted for, and this summer, in New York City, 23% of students never logged on to summer school at all.

Since we closed our school doors, children have not slipped through cracks, they have fallen into canyons.

This is not to argue that we must open schools now across the United States as if the pandemic does not exist. Rather, it is to make the case that in those few states and cities like New York, where the virus is remarkably low, we have a moral obligation to children and our nation to try.

Will it take courage, faith and discipline? It will. Will students who refuse to follow safety rules need to learn from home? Sadly, yes. Should teachers and children with underlying conditions have a remote option? Of course. Openings will not be perfect, and schools may have to close from time to time. But if we throw up objection after complaint as we “get ready to get ready to get ready,” we undermine the trust of parents and fuel the fears of parents and teachers alike.

Even as we did during COVID’s darkest days, New York City can provide the leadership to other major cities, giving evidence of what to do when re-opening their schools as their rates of virus decline.
What we cannot do is try to wait COVID out. Childhood is short, and every year is precious. No politician, pundit or leader can put it on pause.

Categories Health, New York City, Safety

Florida: Judge Lifts Injunction on Opening schools

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2020 //
20

The Florida Education Association was disappointed in latest court decision:

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Education Association (FEA) was disappointed today that the First District Court of Appeal reinstated a stay on the temporary injunction against Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s emergency order. We look forward to continuing to press our case in court for the sake of students, educators and local communities.

“We are going to keep fighting because lives are at stake,” said FEA President Fedrick Ingram. “This is not about closing schools or opening schools. This is about allowing local districts to do what is best to protect local families. Who rightfully gets to make these decisions regarding safety? Is that state officials in the Capitol bubble, or people in our communities? That power should stay with the districts, where it belongs. Educators and parents don’t need directives. They need good solutions for educating kids during a pandemic.”

In removing the automatic stay on the temporary injunction, Judge Charles Dodson of the Second Judicial Circuit wrote: “The statewide reopening of school during the month of August 2020, without local school boards being permitted the opportunity to determine whether it is safe to do so, places people in harm’s way.” The judge warned that, under Commissioner Corcoran’s emergency order, students, teachers and communities could suffer “potential irreparable injury.”

Especially since the stay has been reinstated, it is in the best interest of our state that this case be decided as quickly as possible. The Florida Education Association would urge the First District Court of Appeal to take Judge Dodson’s words to heart, and to rule in favor of our students, educators and communities, and against Commissioner Corcoran’s unconstitutional emergency order.

As FEA asserts in Florida Education Association et al v. Ron DeSantis, as Governor of the State of Florida et al, emergency order 2020-EO-06 is counter to Florida’s Constitution, which mandates that Floridians have a right to “safe” and “secure” public schools.

Local districts should hold power in making local decisions that can be life or death. They also should have the best possible information in making those decisions, including accurate, up-to-date data on coronavirus infections and exposures in their schools.

Their ability to get that data appears increasingly doubtful. Duval County Public Schools recently was ordered to stop publishing information about Covid-19 exposures and cases in schools. And after inadvertently publishing statewide data on Covid cases in schools last weekend, the state health department pulled back the report, saying it was in draft form. The data will be available in the “coming days and weeks,” the department said.

Earlier, as school districts began to contemplate plans for fall, county health departments were reportedly under orders to restrain what they told districts in relation to the pandemic, and to provide information but not recommendations on opening or closing campuses.

Now many districts are open and struggling to contain the coronavirus. New Covid-19 cases in schools are reported nearly every day in counties throughout the state.

Categories Accountability, Florida, Safety

South Carolina: Teachers Fearful About Returning for In-Person Instruction

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2020 //
8

Lucas Smolcic Larson writes in the Island Packet about the views of teachers concerning the return to school.

The S.C. McClatchy newspapers asked educators if they felt ready to return to school during the coronavirus pandemic. Over 250 teachers, librarians, coaches and other educators from every corner of the state responded to the survey. The vast majority work at public schools, with about two-thirds reporting they will be required to teach students face-to-face starting this month or next.”

The teachers quoted are anonymous, for obvious reasons. Most are worried. Some are fearful.

Here are a few of the responses:

Lowcountry, more than 10 years. Everyone is confused, overwhelmed and plans are changing daily. Bottom line, I do not feel safe or valued.

Upstate, more than 10 years. My husband and I are both teachers. We have three young children. We updated our will last week. The stress and anxiety we are all feeling is affecting my entire family.

Midlands, 5-10 years. I expect to be exposed and possibly contract COVID. I am attempting to prepare my home and family if this occurs, and I have to quarantine … We have to look to our medical professionals as to how to handle this situation … They could not opt out of not going to work and neither can the educational professionals. Now is the time for us to step up, mask up and do our part to help our children.

Lowcountry, more than 10 years. It’s not a question of if there’s (going to be) an outbreak at school but WHEN. I feel like a pawn for the politicians and administrators. We teach so as to empower students in our classrooms, yet here we are totally dis-empowered as teachers. These cracks were evident before COVID-19, but the pandemic has widened them into canyons.

Categories Accountability, Health, Safety, South Carolina, Teachers

John Thompson: Oklahoma Politicians Mumbling about the Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
August 27, 2020 //
15

John Thompson is a historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma.

He writes:

The McAlester Public Schools are in the Oklahoma county where COVID is now #1 in the state in per capita COVID infections. A week before the scheduled opening, McAlester reports five positives linked to football. But its schools will still provide in-person instruction.

This is just one of 50 schools with infections on the eve of their reopening in a state which had had a low infection rate, but that is now in the “Red Zone,” with more than 100 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. We must finally ask why responsible leaders, such as the mayors of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, are so unwilling to challenge Trumpian true-believers who undermined science-based public health actions, even as a crisis is clearly unfolding.

https://oklahoman.com/article/5669649/mcalester-schools-to-reopen-amid-state-high-covid-19-rate?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Oklahoman%20breaking-news%202020-08-2021:37:08&utm_content=GTDT_OKC&utm_term=082020

https://www.kosu.org/post/here-are-oklahoma-school-districts-where-covid-19-cases-have-been-discovered-school-began

A week ago, I hoped to communicate with some of the adults in the room – who I know understand that a second burst of COVID is virtually inevitable. So, I started with a joke, borrowing from the late political Oklahoma humorist, James Boren, who used to say, “When in doubt mumble.”

Trying to persuade, I noted that medical experts and responsible political leaders must always wrestle with doubts. And when their audiences are President Donald Trump and Gov. Kevin Stitt, the ability to mumble something in order to not sound disagreeable becomes an essential skill.

For example, the Coronavirus Response Coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, made a “highly touted stop” in Tulsa on August 16th, but it was a private meeting. Public health experts were almost as unrepresented as the press and Democratic officeholders; Dr. Bruce Dart, the director of the Tulsa Health Department, wasn’t invited. Dr. Birx only took five or six questions but at least she warned that Oklahoma may be “a month behind seeing asymptomatic spread happening in other southern states.”

“Asymptomatic spread,” thy name could be classrooms of children returning to public schools and dorms and bars full of returning college students. And what is happening in other southern states (like Texas, Georgia, and Florida) is frightening – perhaps too tragic to say out loud.

Birx didn’t answer press questions as she left. Since she met privately for 45 minutes with Gov. Stitt, there was little opportunity to cross examine his claim, “Overall it went really good, and she’s pleased with Oklahoma and what we’ve done so far.” Oklahomans were told little about her warning about asymptomatic spread beyond Stitt’s characterization of her words, “A lot of other states have shut down bars. That was a recommendation — it wasn’t a recommendation, but that was something she said, you’ve got to be ready if you see your positivities kick up that you can maybe limit bar capacity.”

One of the few media outlets, Tulsa Public Radio, which challenged spin on the crucial question of how schools and colleges can open this month, drew upon a previous study and added, “Birx’s task force has, in fact, told Oklahoma it should shut down bars statewide, calling it ‘critical to disrupt transmission.’”

https://okcfox.com/news/local/hofmeister-talks-school-safety-after-meeting-with-top-coronavirus-adviser

https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/public-press-tulsa-health-director-shut-out-during-visit-white-house-coronavirus-doctor

But now that The Center for Public Integrity has published the latest White House Coronavirus Task Force secret report, we know the truth. We are learning what our leaders know and when did they know it. Now that these facts are no longer need to be mumbled, we must look in the mirror and ask tough questions about ourselves and the leaders, including those we have trusted. Before summarizing the report’s key points, more context could be helpful.

Exclusive: White House document shows 18 states in coronavirus ‘red zone’

Oklahoma’s press has always had reasons to be reluctant to challenge the power structure, so it was no surprise that it was an editorial columnist, as opposed to an investigative reporter, who explicitly revealed a part of the story that intimidates reporters and politicians. The Tulsa World’s Ginnie Graham reminded us, “Dr. George Monks stepped into the role of president of the Oklahoma State Medical Association, requiring him speak truth to the powerful and dubious.”

Gov. Stitt had said that “Oklahoma had ‘plenty of runway’ to respond to virus surges.” But Dr. Monk said “a COVID-19 patient waited a day for the “one and only” hospital bed in Tulsa: “We are at the end of the runway.”

Graham reminded us, “some doctors once promoted smoking as healthy and the anti-vaccine movement finds physicians to back their position.” But Monks says, “We should always tell the truth, even if it hurts.”

https://tulsaworld.com/opinion/columnists/ginnie-graham-tulsa-dermatologist-latest-doctor-finding-himself-at-the-intersection-of-medicine-and-politics/article_93e3e726-b9eb-5f5a-aa8f-32810f094ad1.html#utm_source=tulsaworld.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter-templates%2Ftopic%2Fpopup%2F&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

As time runs out for reducing the size of the imminent crisis, The Frontier, a nonprofit media corporation, reported that former interim state epidemiologist, Dr. Aaron Wendelboe, said that local mask mandates are likely contributing to the current downward trend of new infections. But a reopening of in-person schools and extracurricular activities such as sports will likely increase transmissions. Similarly, Dr. Dale Bratzler, who leads the University of Oklahoma’s coronavirus response, said that they will make outbreaks “almost inevitable.” Bratzler advised, “I think we need to watch very, very carefully what happens in the state because we may need to rethink some of these policies on reopening if we see some of these outbreaks occur.”

Mask mandates appear to be helping Oklahoma control its coronavirus outbreak

Those careful words can’t be dismissed as mumbling, but neither were they headline grabbers. To understand their relative lack of influence, the public must read the Oklahoma Watch account of how Dr. Wendelboe was the second of three state epidemiologists since this March. It cited his predecessor, Dr. Kristy Bradley, who explained, “we had been practicing and developing and fine-tuning that public health playbook in Oklahoma for years and years.” But the governor’s new team “just sort of kept it on the shelf and didn’t dust it off.”

Bradley and Wendelboe had extensive experience with epidemics ranging from Zika to Ebola. But Wendelboe said “his role was to give epidemiological advice, but with the knowledge that leaders have other considerations like the economy or disruptions to daily life to also take into account.” Oklahoma Watch (also a nonprofit) explains:

“There’s many decisions that are being made from different angles,” he said. “I think it’s hard for a state epidemiologist to sometimes know how to navigate some of the factors that are outside the straight epidemiological training. I’ve tried to be really respectful when people don’t take my advice. I understand that there’s other things that I’m not privy to.”

As Pandemic Widens, Oklahoma Diminishes State Epidemiologist Role – Oklahoma Watch

In contrast to fact-based analyses in The Frontier, State Impact (an NPR collaborative), and Oklahoma Watch, the Oklahoman published “Keeping Schools Closed Will Do More Harm Than Good,” an editorial by the Heartland Institute’s Chris Talgo. Since the Oklahoman has a paywall, the best way to understand his argument is to follow the link to Inside Sources, “Keeping Schools Closed Will Do More Harm Than Good.” Talgo says that there are multiple reasons to reopen schools, but:

“They might not because teachers unions and politicians oppose it for their own self-interest. Teachers unions throughout the nation are making outrageous demands before they return to their jobs. This includes defunding the police, “Medicare for All,” huge salary increases and several other requirements that have little to do with improving the educational environment.”

Shockingly, several teachers unions have announced they will not return to work unless and until “a moratorium on private school” is implemented.

In fairness, the Oklahoman also published an editorial opposing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s attempt to grant schools, businesses and healthcare providers immunity from coronavirus-related lawsuits. And within a week, the Oklahoman quoted Dr. David Kendrick of the OU School of Medicine about the “new phase” we are entering, “We had four months now without the impact of primary, secondary and university education on the possibility of transmission. … As schools are opening, we are going to have to give that a big, hard look.”

Counterpoint: Ditching Accountability for Schools Should Get Failing Grade

https://oklahoman.com/article/5669643/coronavirus-in-oklahoma-as-state-passes-50000-infections-and-700-deaths-experts-warn-of-possible-future-spikes?no_cache=1&utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Oklahoman%20breaking-news%202020-08-2020:15:18&utm_content=GTDT_OKC&utm_term=082020

So, I will still mumble support for experts who try to be as candid as allowed when advising politicians. But we now know what the Coronavirus Task Force was actually recommending when Dr. Birx was visiting on August 16. The high points, which are the opposite of what the governor claims, include:

Mask mandate needs to be implemented statewide to decrease community transmission.
Bars must be closed, and indoor dining must be restricted in yellow and red zone counties and metro areas.
In red zones, limit the size of social gatherings to 10 or fewer people; in yellow zones, limit social gatherings to 25 or fewer people.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7041272-Oklahoma-8-16-20.html

And that brings us back to the issue of government leaders who would like to do the right thing, but they don’t dare articulate what they know is likely true. Ideology-driven officials demanded that we place the short-term benefit of bars and other businesses over our students, making it impossible to safely reopen schools. Many compliant public schools and colleges are leading us to a tragedy.

The premature reopening imposed on communities quickly drove our state’s seven-day average of daily infections from 69 on June 1 to 1,089 on August 1. Since then, our previously effective leaders have gone along with sound bites about a downward curve, ignoring the experts’ warnings about what would happen as schools reopened.

As I wrote this, yesterday’s infections were announced – 1,077.

Then, it was also revealed that Mayor Bynum just learned from Birx that “eight White House reports had been issued. He said he was only aware of one that had been previously leaked to the media.” Stitt then agreed that “he will ask that the White House reports be made publicly available to everyone.”

If the full truth about reopening schools – which should have been revealed more than two months earlier – is released as students are going back to in-person classes, and infections are spread, parents should demand more than mumbling from the governor.

https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/

Stitt bows to pressure to release White House reports on coronavirus

Categories Education Reform, Health, Oklahoma, Safety

Mercedes Schneider: What Matters Most when Teaching During a Pandemic

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2020 //
7

Mercedes Schneider is preparing for the opening of her high school in Louisiana. Teaching during a global pandemic is a twilight zone, where everyone is groping to do the right thing.

She is aware of the difficulty of planning when there is so much uncertainty. Yet that’s what educators do: they plan.

She’s aware of the contradictions that will make every day challlenging.

The one constant that she pledges to hold on to iscrelationships. With students. With colleagues. The days ahead will be hard on everyone. Be kind.

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers and Teaching

Florida: Judge Blocks State Order to Open Schools

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2020 //
7

In Florida, state officials ordered schools across the state to open fully without regard to safety or local officials. The Florida Education Association sued, and a judge blocked them reopening.

A Florida judge Monday granted a temporary injunction against the state’s order requiring school districts to reopen schools during the novel coronavirus pandemic, saying in a harshly worded decision that parts of it were unconstitutional.
Circuit Court Judge Charles Dodson, in a 16-page decision, granted the request in a lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association to block the order issued by state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran compelling schools to reopen five days a week for families who wanted that option.

The state also required districts to offer virtual learning.
School districts can now proceed to follow through on starting the 2020-2021 school year as they want, according to the teachers union.


The Florida Education Department said it could not immediately comment on the decision.


The White House, where President Trump has been pushing districts to reopen schools and threatened to withhold federal funds if they didn’t — though he doesn’t have the power to do that unilaterally — said it would not comment on state matters.


Dodson said in his decision that the state did not take many important health considerations into consideration when it issued the order.
“It fails to mention consideration of community transmission rates, varying ages of students, or proper precautions,” he wrote. “What has been clearly established is there is no easy decision and opening schools will most likely increase covid-19 cases in Florida.”


The judge ruled that the plaintiffs had established that the order was being “applied arbitrarily across Florida.” He sided with the plaintiffs, granting a preliminary injunction against the order and striking down parts of it as unconstitutional.



The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is an ally of the president’s, has for months been pushing districts to reopen. On July 6, Corcoran issued an issue requiring that school districts reopen school buildings, though it gave a few districts in south Florida, which had extremely high coronavirus rates, permission to start the 2020-2021 school year remotely.


Other districts that wanted to start remotely were not given approval, including Hillsborough County, which was threatened by the DeSantis administration with the loss of nearly $200 million if it carried out its plan to open remotely.


The lawsuit said that Corcoran’s order was unconstitutional because it threatened the safety of schools by conditioning funding on reopening school buildings by the end of August, regardless of the dangers posed by the pandemic.

The lawsuit also said the order was “arbitrary” and “capricious” on its face and application.
The state responded, saying the order was a reasonable exercise of emergency powers by the DeSantis administration that balanced the constitutional rights of students to a public education against the risk of harm during the pandemic.

It also said that states had submitted reopening plans that included the opening of school campuses, and that showed the districts wanted to proceed that way.
Dodson didn’t accept that reasoning, saying that districts had no choice but to open buildings because of the order.

Categories Florida, Health, Safety, San Antonio, Unions

Arthur Goldstein: NYC Schools Can’t Open Unless They Are Safe

By dianeravitch
August 23, 2020 //
35

Arthur Goldstein, a veteran New York City high school teacher, warns that New York City public schoools cannot open unless they are safe for students and staff. He wrote an open letter to staff at his school. The signs and portents of a strike by the city’s United Federation of Teachers are looming in the background.

He writes, in part,

Every time I read someone advocating opening buildings, they have a proviso. They say of course, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll go back to remote learning. In fact there are a lot of places where it didn’t work out, and they did just that. There’s Israel, South Korea, multiple schools in the south and southwest, and universities that saw immediate rises in infection levels, while starting below Mayor de Blasio’s much ballyhooed 3% positive level (so much for that). Chapel Hill closed in one week.

There’s a real cost to these openings, and that cost is the health of those who attend. I know some of you who’ve been very sick. I know some of you who’ve lost family members. I’ve had family members sick, and I lost a friend.

The whole country is looking to us as the only major city that can possibly open school buildings. UFT has looked at this, and decided that if we are to open, the only way to do it is safely. We’ve therefore consulted with medical experts, some of whom you can see at Mulgrew’s press conference, and concluded the only way to deal with the virus was to actively test for it and trace it.

We don’t want a single educator or student to get sick. We don’t want any students or employees bringing COVID home to their families. The UFT demands for testing were created in consultation with medical experts. They are beyond reasonable; they are visionary. We’ve looked at the failures and determined ways to preclude them. Our testing demands are based on science. The mayor’s opposition is based on hiding his head in the sand and hoping for the best.

Here is a checklist of what UFT will be looking at as we visit every building in the city. UFT also demands a Covid Building Response Team to create protocols for how students will move when entering and leaving school, and also to map out responses to issues that may occur. Finally, to ensure safety, we demand that everyone entering the school building be tested for the virus. We demand random testing to ensure we stay safe.

UFT will not allow its members or the students we serve to be veritable canaries in a coal mine. Dr. Fauci can talk about how we’re part of a great experiment, but we refuse to be guinea pigs. We refuse to make guinea pigs of our families, our students, or their families. If Mayor de Blasio refuses to make schools safe, we will refuse to work.

Categories Health, New York City, Safety, Students, Teachers, Union
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