School Reopenings—Parents, Students Don’t Need National Consensus, They Need This Strategy

Parents looking for a national consensus on whether schools should open in the fall won’t find one. But that’s okay. We don’t need one.

Parents should be wary of press releases with advice on education from public or private national groups that use words like “comprehensive” or “nation’s schools."

Washington should not force schools to reopen. But national officials can remind state lawmakers and parents there are alternatives.

Parents looking for a national consensus on whether schools should open in the fall won’t find one. But that’s okay. We don’t need one.

As soon as President Trump announced his support for reopening schools this fall, teacher unions said he was “brazenly making these decisions.” So much for consensus. And this despite the fact that both proclamations said students should be kept safe, emphasized Centers for Disease Control guidelines on reopening (speakers on the White House panel cited no fewer than eight CDC reports, while unions called the documents “conflicting guidance”), and claimed to have the nation’s best interests in mind. Well.

Luckily, many state officials and school leaders had already moved on. In April, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said that schools could hold classes in-person immediately, but left the decision to local educators. In Idaho, closures varied by school district, but some school leaders had students back in class by May. Governors and state officials have announced in-person summer school classes for Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Texas and Virginia.

Even if relatively few schools have thus far decided to have students return to the classrooms, that fact that some states have done so should change parents’ question from if schools will open in the fall to how quickly the process can happen.

“The CDC has issued guidance,” Vice President Mike Pence said at the White House event, “but that guidance is meant to supplement and not replace state, local, territorial, or tribal guidance.” What may be “conflicting guidance,” to unions is better described as “federalism.” 50 states, 50 different pandemics, 50 laboratories of democracy.

That’s the way it should be. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the “laboratory” phrase, prefacing it by saying, “To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility.” We should be encouraged, then, that some local educators are not waiting for Washington to decide for them, and, likewise, that parents are not waiting on schools.

After the wild ride of sudden school closures in March, uneven attempts at online instruction through the spring, and a school year that seemed to have no official end date, polls showed more parents were considering educating their children at home. For those wondering if the 59 percent of respondents in a USA Today/Ipsos poll who said they may homeschool now really meant it, a headline last week—and weeks before school starts—from North Carolina’s North State Journal read “Homeschool requests overload state government website.”

Those not ready to homeschool will find it difficult if not impossible to return to work if schools are closed. Montana is not Virginia which is not New York City, and parents ready to homeschool in Greensboro, N.C., may be thinking differently than a family in Charlotte. Parents should be wary of press releases with advice on education from public or private national groups that use words like “comprehensive,” “nation’s schools,” or even “all.”

The Trump administration said that schools may lose federal money if they stay closed. Such a move would likely be challenged in court. But one problematic aspect of this threat is that it keeps the debate over who should be making decisions for the “nation’s schools”—again, beware the phrase—at the national level, a tussle between the federal government and nationally-focused special interest groups.

A more effective talking point for the administration would be to encourage the laboratories. For example: In areas where schools are closed, state lawmakers could give parents and students who wish to opt-out of those schools the students' per-student spending amount to use for homeschooling resources, private school tuition, tutors and more. Or erase district boundaries and allow students to choose a traditional school other than his or her assigned school.

The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teacher unions, will howl at the suggestions, but they should be loath to take the matter to court again. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montana could not prevent families from choosing a religious school when students use K-12 private school scholarships created by state law.

Unions regularly cite provisions in state constitutions that are rooted in religious bigotry when the groups sue to block such opportunities, but the High Court called precisely this language discriminatory in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, weakening the union’s position in 37 other U.S. states with similar provisions. The fight has already advanced to defending scholarships to religious private schools in Maine.

Washington should not force schools to reopen. But national officials can remind state lawmakers and parents there are alternatives. Short of a consensus on opening schools in August, that is the best news for everyone.

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Democrats Play Politics With Schools, But It’s Not the First Time

Twenty-two European countries reopened their schools back in May, and it did not cause “any significant increase in coronavirus infections among children, parents, or staff.” In the months that have followed, more evidence has emerged that children are not only far less susceptible to getting sick from COVID-19, they are not transmitting it. Extended school shutdowns, however, have taken a much greater toll on kids’ mental, emotional, and physical health.

Yet Democrats are making it controversial to return to school. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ignores the science, saying, “going back to school presents the biggest risk.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio limits school to only one to three days a week and California Governor Gavin Newsom cancels in-person school for the entire academic year. Why? For the same reason Democrats block low-income kids from leaving failing schools to get a better education: the teachers unions tell them to.

A French study of over 1,300 people in one coronavirus outbreak found just three probable cases among kids, and they didn’t lead to more infections among adults. Rather than the rumored fearmongering of kids as “super-spreaders,” it was parents who infected their children — not the other way around.

Another study in Ireland examined 1,000 contacts between three kids aged 10 to 15 who had the virus and did not find a single transmission in the school setting, not even at choir practice. The results “echo the experience of other countries, where children are not emerging as considerable drivers of transmission of COVID-19.”

Yet another study in Germany found reopened schools did not drive transmission, and children actually act as a “brake on infection.” The mask requirement for schools will be dropped in the fall.

The media ignores these facts, instead opting for politically driven science-free hysteria. CNN declares that President Trump “takes new risks with schools.” In reality, kids are at much greater risk during a normal flu season. The risk to kids under 15 of dying from the flu or pneumonia is up to 20 times higher than the coronavirus. Kids are 128 times more likely to die of an accident. Should we cancel school and recess forever?

Democrat-imposed school shutdowns are the new risk. The American Academy of Pediatrics says isolation due to school closures leads physical and sexual abuse to go unreported and increases risk of substance use, depression, and suicide.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatrics infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado, says reopening is “so important for the kids, but really for the entire community.” Dr Gavin Morgan, an educational psychologist in the UK, says continuing to deprive kids of playing with their friends will cause their mental health to suffer “irreparably.”

Joe Biden said, “listen to the experts." What changed? Democrats never really cared about the science. If they demonized a safe 60-year-old FDA-approved drug proven to be effective at treating the virus, they will politicize school. When the teachers unions say close, Democrats ask, how long? If you have to guess, it will be until about Nov. 3.

Democrats didn’t just begin politicizing education. Just like the science says it’s safe to reopen, the data shows students achieve more when they have school choice.

In New York City, two kids can go to school in the same building but achieve markedly improved results with choice. Thomas Sowell reports fewer than 10 percent of students in public school reached the “proficient” level, while the majority of those in school choice lottery classrooms reached proficiency, with many grade levels at over 80 percent proficient.

In Wisconsin, charter and private choice schools cost just two-thirds of public schools but consistently outperform them. In Florida, students enrolled in the recently expanded private school-choice program are up to 99 percent more likely to enroll in college. Democrats continue to block this opportunity, like Gov. Tom Wolf who is blocking 50,000 kids from receiving scholarships in Pennsylvania.

Expect worse from Joe Biden. He vows to govern like a National Education Association member and have a “teacher-oriented Department of Education.” And you thought kids were supposed to come first.

The first thing Biden would do in office, just like his predecessor, is take away minority kids’ education opportunities. The Biden-Sanders unity task force opposes all school choice vouchers and would kill the program in Washington, D.C. and the dreams of 1,700 kids – 83 percent who are Black with an average family income of $26,000 – along with it.

Teachers’ unions first. Kids last. The National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and others, give a lot to Democrats — $33.2 million in 2016 and $15 million so far this cycle — and they expect to be rewarded.

The Trump administration puts kids first. In April, the Department of Education announced $65 million in new grants for public charter schools, and 95 percent will go to Opportunity Zones, helping kids in the most need. Education Freedom Scholarships are providing $5 billion in tax credits to finance choice scholarships annually.

President Trump will always ensure Americans, of all backgrounds, of all ages, regardless of zip code, have an equal shot at the American Dream. Open the schools. And never let Democrats block kids from going to a better once again.

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Send Your Kids to School!

Jackie Gingrich Cushman

In the 1980s, when I started working in financial analysis for a $3 billion company, my first project was to work with the company's field organizations to ensure that the metrics (financial and operational) were sent in a timely manner and based on consistent definitions. The goal was to ensure that the daily, weekly and monthly reports included correct, consistent information that could be compared across the company. It took a few months, but we were able to ensure that we were getting good information in a timely manner.

Fast-forward a few decades. Months into the coronavirus pandemic, we are still grappling with how to collect, compile and interpret data correctly. A New York Times article by Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz published Tuesday titled "Bottleneck for U.S. Coronavirus Response: The Fax Machine" notes that data is being funneled through several pipelines. As a result, there is a good chance some of that data is missed or counted twice.

"Health departments track the virus's spread with a distinctly American patchwork: a reporting system in which some test results arrive via smooth data feeds but others come by phone, email, physical mail or fax," Kliff and Sanger-Katz wrote. "These reports often come in duplicate, go to the wrong health department, or are missing crucial information such as a patient's phone number or address."

Robert Guaderrama of Florida FOX 35 in Orlando reported this week: "the Florida Department of Health said that some laboratories have not been reporting negative test result data to the state. Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive." Clearly, this is highly unlikely.

The challenge is that, if the numbers put in the system are not good, well, then, what comes out is garbage. Let's just assume that we could get good data into our system. We would then sort through the data to determine what it means.

Based on my business experience above, I learned that once we accumulated good, consistent data over time, we were able to determine data trends, correlations and causation. The latter proved key. By determining causation, managers could focus on improving outcomes.

Back to the pandemic. We are currently debating whether to reopen schools, and the press is reporting the number of cases and deaths every day but telling us little about who is catching the disease, who is dying from it and why. In April, the Science Museum Group Science Director Roger Highfield interviewed Kari Stefansson, the CEO of deCODE genetics, which is based in Reykjavik, Iceland. Stefansson studied the causes of COVID-19's spread in Iceland. The interview was posted on the Science Museum Group website on April 27.

"Children under 10 are less likely to get infected than adults and if they get infected, they are less likely to get seriously ill," said Stefansson. "What is interesting is that, even if children do get infected, they are less likely to transmit the disease to others than adults. We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents."

David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, wrote a Medium article published on June 13 titled "What have been the fatal risks of Covid, particularly to children and younger adults?"

"Across seven countries up to 19th May, there had been 44 COVID deaths recorded out of over 137 million 0-19 year-olds, a rate of less than 1 in 3 million, while this same group suffered over 1000 deaths from accidents over this same period," he wrote. What else did Spiegelhalter discover? "The extraordinary linearity of the death rates on the logarithmic scale shows that COVID death rates have a fairly precise exponential increase with age, increasing at around 12-13% each year, corresponding to a doubling every 5-6 years."

OK, so now we know that children are not spreading to adults and the risk of death increases with age. What else makes a difference in the death rate? "The Office of National Statistics for England and Wales reported that '90 percent of COVID deaths had other pre-existing conditions mentioned on death certificate,'" according to Spiegelhalter.

So, age and underlying health make a huge difference.

We've also learned that we can reduce the risk of catching COVID-19 by taking basic precautions, which include cleaning, sanitizing, distancing oneself from others and spending time outdoors. Even if you do catch it, your chance of dying from it is less than 1%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We should focus on controlling what we can but still moving forward. Making kids stay home does not make sense.

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More Than 20 Countries Are Reopening Schools. The US Should Take Note

In March, school shutdowns around the globe caused 1.5 billion children to begin schooling from home, representing over 91% of children, UNESCO estimates.

Here in the U.S., conversations about the state of school reopenings have hit a fever pitch as August quickly approaches. Many parents—some 71% in Education Next’s 2020 poll—feel their children learned less this spring than they would have had schools remained open.

As Science magazine reports, over 20 countries reopened schools in June, and some, like Taiwan, Nicaragua, and Sweden, never closed them to begin with. Day cares remained open for essential workers in many countries, and although there are exceptions, outbreaks have generally been rare.

To be sure, there have been some cases of outbreaks at schools that have reopened. As Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Gretchen Vogel, and Meagan Weiland report in Science, more than 150 students and 25 staff members contracted the virus at a joint middle/high school in Jerusalem, and 96 students and teachers caught the virus at a New Zealand high school before that country’s lockdown went into effect.

Additionally, two day care centers in Canada saw spikes among staff and reclosed.

Overall, however, the data suggest that it is rare for children to develop severe symptoms if they contract the virus, and it is rare for them to spread the virus if they do get it.

That is why many countries, particularly in Europe, have at least partially reopened schools. Here is a sample of what countries around the world are doing when it comes to reopening:

Australia. In the state of New South Wales, schools reopened for in-person classes one day per week in early May, combined with virtual learning the four remaining days. Individual schools were able to decide how to best schedule those classes. On May 25, schools reopened full time.

Austria. Schools have reopened, and masks are no longer required because “officials observed little spread within schools.”
Canada. In Quebec, schools reopened in May and children socialize in groups of six. Science reports that while 53 students and teachers contracted the virus, “officials believed many of those infections were contracted in the community.”

Denmark. Denmark was the first country in Europe to reopen schools, doing so on April 15. Schools in Denmark do as much class time outside as possible, and children are divided into small groups, nicknamed “pods,” of around 12 students.

Finland. Finland reopened schools in May and have retained their standard class size, but have kept classes separated from each other and staggered reopening by age. Finnish officials “found no evidence of school spread and no change in the rate of infection” for students under 16.

France. French schools reopened in mid-May on a voluntary basis. Research out of France suggests that when children do contract the disease, they are contracting it at home, rather than in school. French schools are planning to fully reopen in September.
Germany. In German schools, which reopened in May on a part-time basis, if a student or staff member contracts the virus, “classmates and teachers of an infected student are sent home for two weeks, but other classes continue.”

Israel. Schools fully reopened in May in Israel, and classes are full, but students wear masks. Individual schools close temporarily if a student or staff member contracts the virus.

Japan. Japan began reopening schools in June. Parents must take their children’s temperature every morning and provide a report to the schools. Children attend on alternating days, and teachers and students wear masks.

Netherlands. The Netherlands reopened in May but halved their class sizes. Schools did not require social distancing for students under 12.

Sweden. Schools in Sweden never closed for young children, nor did they make major adjustments to their day-to-day operations or reduce class size. Although Sweden’s death rate is high compared to its European neighbors, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist says “there’s little evidence schools exacerbated the outbreak.”

In countries with high infection rates, like India and Brazil, schools remain closed and local governments will likely determine when schools reopen on a case-by-case basis.

In the U.S., the Trump administration has called on schools to reopen this fall. President Donald Trump suggested last week that schools could lose access to federal funding (which only makes up just 8.5% of all K-12 school revenue) if they do not reopen.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos suggested that rather than withholding federal funds, those dollars should simply follow students to the schools of the family’s choice that are open—a smart policy response.

For their part, the teachers unions and other special-interest groups are demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to reopen schools. The American Federation of Teachers has demanded Congress spend $116 billion on K-12 school reopening, “close to the amount the U.S. dedicated to the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II,” Corey DeAngelis of Reason Foundation points out.

By framing the conversation as a battle between federal officials and special-interest groups, the debate shifts away from those it impacts the most—local schools and families—as my colleague Jonathan Butcher observes.

Decisions about reopening schools need to be driven by school leaders and parents, and based on local factors.

If public school districts remain closed, do a poor job of transitioning online, or do not meet the needs of families in this COVID-19 era, parents should be able to take their money elsewhere.

States should provide emergency education savings accounts to families to enable them to enroll their children at schools of their choice that are open or are providing quality online instruction.

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