Public Schools Are Fine With Reopening—If They Can Charge More

After deciding to go online this fall, counties in Virginia and Maryland soon created in-person child care programs as a solution for working parents — but only if they can afford it.

The Supporting Return to School Program (SRS) in Fairfax County, Virginia, promises hands-on support for virtual learning and boasts a “warm and welcoming environment.” Howard County, Maryland, is doing something similar with RecZone, a program in which students will be able to “enjoy crafts, physical activities, and games” throughout the week.

Both programs come at a cost. Though the exact price of Fairfax’s program is undisclosed online, the RecZone program costs $325 for a full week and $259 for shortened hours.

The thought of public schools charging additional fees for education is ridiculous, but it’s happening. Though these programs are marketed as child care programs, they sound an awful lot like your typical school day. Learning, themed activities, the company of peers, the promise of “social and emotional development” — the only thing missing is a certified teacher.

So despite all their talk of the necessity of closing, it seems that public schools are actually fine with reopening — as long as they can turn a profit.

Worsening the situation is the fact that the people behind these programs believe them to be fair: “The SRS program reflects Fairfax County’s and Fairfax County Public School’s joint commitment to … ensuring that all families have equitable access to the services they need to support children’s virtual learning.”

But because they cost money, only children whose parents have the luxury to pay can enjoy the benefits of the programs. Children from lower-income families, who have less disposable income and typically rely on the normal school day to address child care needs, are more likely to be left behind. And because “space is limited” in these programs, even families who can afford them might not be able to secure spots for their children.

How’s that for equity?

The introduction of these for-profit child care programs is nothing more than a deplorable attempt to distract from the real issues at hand. It is a tactic taken straight out of the Democrats’ playbook: If you can’t address the underlying issues, cover them up. Do something that looks good now even if it causes more headaches in the long run. Don’t worry about handling taxpayer money responsibly.

Parents can’t afford to leave the well-being of our children in the hands of such careless bureaucrats. We know enough now about how to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and we need to seriously consider how school closures will negatively impact children for years to come. School officials must figure out how to bring all kids safely back to school — not just a select few.

Faith in our public schools was already waning before the pandemic hit. And with the way school boards are handling the crisis, I’d be surprised if there is any faith left by year’s end. Public school enrollment is down, while private school enrollment is up. More and more families seem intent on homeschooling or on “pod learning” — the free market at work. Parents, let this be a lesson: Don’t leave your child’s education in the hands of politicians and public school boards. Once again, they’ve proven that they couldn’t care less about learning. What they really care about is money and power.

The tax dollars are already there. Either use them to create more accessible day care programs or reopen schools. Don’t force parents to pay extra in order to give kids the sense of normalcy they deserve this school year.

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Schools in Europe Reopen Despite Virus Rise

BERLIN-European countries are pushing ahead with reopening schools with in-person learning despite an uptick in Covid-19 cases and new studies suggesting children could be more susceptible to the disease than originally thought.

Authorities in France, Germany, the U.K. and Italy are looking to avoid another blanket closure of schools this autumn, relying instead on steps such as social distancing and mask wearing to contain infections. In case of outbreaks, they plan to shut down only individual classes or schools.

The stance generally has support from unions, as well as many parents, and is bolstered by the absence of school-related outbreaks in day-care centers and elementary schools that remained open in the spring, when infection levels were far higher.

In recent weeks, daily new cases have risen in countries including Germany, France and Spain. But while Europe as a whole is now reporting about 12,000 cases a day-more than 2½ times as many as in early July-that is well below the 32,000 a day recorded at the peak in April.

In the German state of Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania, where the school year started last week, two schools temporarily closed after a teacher at the first and a pupil at the second were found to be infected. But for now, authorities are undeterred. Classes have been divided into clusters, with students allowed to interact with each other but not outside the group. One such group was quarantined at a school in the city of Rostock after several members of a family tested positive. The school remained open.

“Nothing has changed. On the contrary, our precautionary concept is working, and we are focusing on targeted measures to prevent renewed blanket closures,” said Henning Lipski, spokesman for the Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania government.

Kay Czerwinski, head of the parents association in Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania, said schools should remain open. “We have to persevere. Children-especially in ele- mentary schools-must return to in-person teaching as soon as possible,” he said.

Pressure is high in Europe to return children to the classroom so parents can go back to work. Policy makers are also concerned about the impact of prolonged home schooling on students, especially in poorer families.

“School closures are only effective if we want to damage our children,” said Wieland Kiess, a professor of pediatrics at the Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development in Germany. He coordinated a study that showed isolation at home is damaging the mental health of children.

In Germany, back-to-school rules vary from state to state. Children in Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania must wear masks on school buses and all common areas outside of classrooms. Classes aren’t al- lowed to mix on school premises. Teachers are encouraged to take free coronavirus tests.

In Scotland, students returning this week are being kept in groups throughout the day to limit intermingling of different age groups and expected to regularly wash their hands. Face coverings aren’t compulsory, but older children and adults may be asked to wear them if data point to an increase in infections in the surrounding community.

Many disease experts say the risk to children from Covid-19 is small, with multiple studies showing most display only mild symptoms, if any. Studies also have indicated that younger children haven’t been driving the epidemic.

European countries that reopened their schools in the spring haven’t reported any significant spread among children or the population at large.

In Sweden, which kept day care and schools open throughout the pandemic, a government study found this had no measurable effect on the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases as a whole. Denmark, which in April became the first Western country to lift the lockdown for day care and elementary schools, reported a steady decrease of cases nationwide afterward.

When French kindergartens and schools reopen in early September, attendance will be compulsory with very few exceptions. Teaching staff and children older than 11 will be required to wear masks in some settings, and classes will be kept separated.

The U.K.’s National Education Union, which represents 450,000 teachers, lecturers and support staff, initially resisted the partial reopening of schools in June, but now says it supports a fuller reopening if strict hygiene and social-distancing standards are met.

Government guidance released this summer doesn’t set specific thresholds for school closures in the U.K., but public- health officials may advise individual schools to close if there is a localized outbreak.

British parents are somewhat divided in a country that has had among the highest per capita death rates from Covid-19. Polling conducted by YouGov in August found 57% of those surveyed thought schools should reopen after the summer holidays, with a quarter saying they shouldn’t.

European countries are determined to keep schools open while Covid-19 cases rise across the continent.

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The Sociology of the Academic Outrage Mob

The academy seems built for public controversy because professors are encouraged to question ideas and popular beliefs. It shouldn’t be surprising that academic outrage has a long history.

In the past, scholars could find themselves in trouble, like Galileo, who defended Copernican astronomy and then proceeded to attack Pope Urban VIII, a position so unpopular that he was literally tried for heresy by the Inquisition and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The philosopher Bertrand Russell had his job offer at the City University of New York revoked in 1940 when religious leaders disagreed with his liberal attitudes toward sex.

Anti-academic outrage continues today. A wave of digital “outrage mobs” have appeared, demanding that professors lose their jobs and academic articles be retracted. This trend differs from the past in ways that merit close attention.

Rather than being about academia’s conflict with religious or political forces outside of the university, as Galileo and Bertrand Russell were, the current conflict seems to be about the internal policing of academics by other academics. This development is dangerous, not only for those professors targeted by outrage mobs, but for a broader intellectual environment that nurtures academic inquiry.

The focus of this policing is racial and gender inequality. Some call these inquisitors the “intersectional Left” because of the movement’s reliance on intersectional social theory that emphasizes the overlapping categories of gender, race, and class. Others merely use the phrase the “Academic Left” or the “Critical Theory Left.” This academic subculture is an important shift in the way that many academics think of their mission. Inequality is no longer seen as a problem to be studied and addressed through academic research. Instead, inequality has become a master framework for discussions of institutional legitimacy and academic merit. A professor, or institution, that does not adequately address inequality in the proper way, or with the proper words, is deemed an unwitting accomplice in a system of institutionalized discrimination.

A professor who openly criticizes intersectional theory, or its theoretical kin, is an apostate.

The Academic Left is not without merit; it raises valuable points. As most social scientists will attest, there is ample evidence that discrimination and prejudice are alive and well. Audit studies, such as those done by Devah Pager in 2007 and Ted Thornhill in 2018, have often shown that people with similar qualifications in job searches and college admissions will suffer penalties if they are perceived to be Black.

The Academic Left also makes very fair points about our campuses. If a building is named in honor of a person who literally owned other people and abused them, then why should we hesitate to tear down that symbol of tyranny? Their name should be preserved in the history books, but we can safely take it down from the facade of the college library.

The troubling aspect of contemporary academic culture is not that it tries to rectify historical injustices. The problem is how it treats critics and those who do not completely adhere to a particular approach to race or gender.

One might point to cases like Rebecca Tuvel, the philosophy professor who was attacked for making an argument in 2017 about the similarity of transgender people and transracial people in the journal Hypatia. Her critics did not initially submit refutations to the journal for peer review. Instead, they demanded that the article be retracted. In 2020, an academic journal retracted an article about a theory of gender dysphoria by a neurology professor at the University of Michigan after a petition signed by 900 people.

I do not defend the content of these articles. I am not a gender theorist, a neurologist, or a philosopher so I can’t tell if these articles are gems of insights or confused mangles of thought. The bigger issue, and what should concern anyone who cares about higher education and open debate, is that a crowd of academics formed to have peer-reviewed articles retracted instead of refuted.

This trend escalated in the spring and early summer of 2020 after the vicious killing of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin. The killing triggered an enormous wave of protest, one of the largest in American history. While there is unanimous support for bringing Chauvin to justice and reforming the police, there is a wide range of opinions about policy proposals offered by police reform activists.

The debate over how we understand police misconduct and reform is welcome and needed. It also should be expected that some citizens will be angered by what professors say.

What is problematic is when other professors try to enact retribution against those who offer unpopular opinions about police reform and activists.

For example, a Michigan State University administrator, Steven Hsu, was forced from his position for having interviewed another Michigan State University professor who studied police shootings and had data suggesting that there were no racial differences among victims of police violence. Critics were also upset that Hsu spoke to controversial libertarian figures like Stefan Molyneux.

Harald Uhlig, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, lost a consulting position at the Federal Reserve Bank and was temporarily suspended from his editorship of the prestigious Journal of Political Economy for saying that he thought that police defunding proposals were ridiculous. He compared activists who advocated police defunding to “flat earthers.”

In probably the goofiest episode of academic rage, nearly 2,000 people signed a petition to fire Patricia Simon, a theater professor at Manhattan Marymount College, for allegedly sleeping during a meeting to fight racism.

If every professor who slept during a meeting was fired, the university would be a very empty place.

Academic outrage mobs are bad. They are a form of surrender. Rather than see opposing ideas as something to be debated and rejected, the academic outrage mob moves to censure and erase ideas. Genuine debate requires that we seriously engage with ideas that are profoundly wrong, offensive, and possibly dangerous. Thus, academic research requires a degree of level-headedness—an ability to calmly look at opposing points of view, however repulsive, and say, “this is why they are wrong.”

The bigger issue is that a crowd of academics formed to have peer-reviewed articles retracted instead of refuted.
It is also possible that opposing points of view may have some truth to them and that is lost in the rush to “cancel.” By resorting to cancellation as a tactic, the academic outrage mob has given up on the most basic element of academic culture in favor of partisan rancor and the pleasure of banishing people who are deemed offensive.

Furthermore, academic outrage mobs have the potential to introduce very illiberal reforms into the university.

For example, a committee of professors and graduate students at Princeton University issued a statement demanding that racism be addressed on campus. Some of their requests are sensible, such as investigating instances of racism aimed at students and faculty. Other demands are clearly illegal, such as giving extra resources to scholars of color because of their ethnicity. Then, we have demands that are chilling, such as the call to have a campus committee judge what is racist teaching and research on campus.

Ironically, one faculty member has already been investigated, and cleared, for strongly criticizing one of the student groups that participated in the drafting of the statement.

What to do? First, we have to recognize that these are not isolated incidents. Campus illiberalism has been expressed through campus speaker controversies, blow-ups over dormitory rules, demands that people be fired, or the demand to retract journal articles. It is not a myth, nor are these outbursts a handful of rare events. There is a subculture on campus that seeks to suppress or disrupt speech.

Second, we have to adopt a stance of positive engagement. We should not replace an illiberal culture with more intolerance. If activists raise a valid point, we should take them seriously.

Third, we must use the word “no” more often. Just because a group of people on Twitter is upset about something does not mean that it needs to be investigated.

Fourth, we must invest in institutions that supplement the academic mainstream. The Heterodox Academy, which promotes civil debate among competing views, is one possibility.

The current academic outrage wave is troubling, but with some thoughtfulness, we can create a better higher education system.

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Australia: Social work, psychology protected from university price hikes as Federal Government looks to lock in support

The biggest higher education reform in decades is set to pass its first test — a Coalition party room vote — after social work and psychology were cut from the list of humanities courses set to have fees doubled.

Introduced in June, the Federal Government's "job-ready graduates" program is designed to equip the tertiary sector for post-pandemic employment needs by using a carrot and stick method of reducing fees for some courses, while increasing fees for others.

The reforms, which yesterday triggered hundreds of teachers and staff to join a virtual grassroots organising committee vowing illegal strike action, will likely be introduced in the house on Wednesday.

But the reforms face a tougher task in the Senate, where the program needs critical votes from crossbenchers.

Education Minister Dan Tehan declined to comment on the grounds the matter was going to a partyroom vote.

However, the ABC understands Coalition backbenchers returning home to electorates and hearing about concerns over access to mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the partyroom change.

It is understood social work and psychology will both be taken out of the most expensive band, band 4, where humanities sit, and into band 2.

How much students can expect to pay:

Band    Discipline    Annual cost

1    Teaching, clinical psychology, English, maths, nursing, languages, agriculture    $3,700

2    Allied health, other health, architecturey, English, maths, nursing, languages, agriculture    $3,700, IT, creative arts, engineering, environmental studies, science    $7,700

3    Medical, dental, veterinary science    $11,300

4    Law & economics, management & commerce, society & culture, humanities, communications, behavioural science    $14,500

One of the senators the Federal Government will need to convince, independent Rex Patrick, said the latest changes were not enough.

He said wanted to see an inquiry into the proposal — which the Government would likely try to avoid.

"They have been presented without much evidence as to the effect they will have in the long term," Senator Patrick said

"I think a lot of students make their choices based on an affinity for a particular topic.

"I don't think you can force someone who's got an affinity with the humanities down a STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] path."

The fee hikes, as well as the absence of a comprehensive rescue package for the sector that is expected to haemorrhage between $3 billion and $4.6 billion in revenue this year, has parts of some campuses in revolt.

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