On School Openings

ANDREW JASON COHEN

Back in April, I “predicted” we’d see 150 to 200 thousand deaths from COVID-19 in the US.  As we are now in that range, I’m hoping I was right and we don’t go past the 200,000, but of course this is so far outside my expertise that my guess means little.  But here we are and school openings approach.  Some seem deadly afraid of school openings and some seem deadly afraid of schools not opening. (I’m primarily thinking here about K-12, but much of what I say applies to colleges as well—and of course, high school juniors and seniors are more like college freshman than kindergarteners in terms of COVID-19 transmission and symptoms.)

Those conflicting views often accompany two others: that people favoring school openings foolishly think young children are immune to the effects of COVID-19 (or otherwise don’t understand the risks of reopening) and that people opposing school openings don’t care about education (or otherwise overestimate the risks of reopening). 

Meanwhile, I don’t believe any thinking person really thinks any children are immune to COVID-19, despite claims coming from the White House.  Of course, young children do seem to get badly sick from the virus much less than anyone expected back in March.  And there is no reason to believe that those worried about sending kids into closed buildings with hundreds of others don’t care about education.

My biggest issue with discussions about this—and many things—is that people seem unable or unwilling to keep the pros and cons in mind at the same time.  But schools are, by and large, run by groups of people that have to be able to do just that in order to make rational decisions about whether to open, close, reopen, re-close schools—sometimes despite political pressures by governing bodies, unions, parental organizations, and more.

This has to be a hugely difficult question and cannot be made without considering both the costs and the benefits.  At a minimum that includes the following assumptions (yes, I think both of these are true):

-if schools are open, kids and teachers are going to get sick (plexiglass around the kids, masks all day, etc, is not going to stop it). They will also bring the disease to their families, friends, and neighbors.  We’re likely to pass 200k deaths more quickly (and with more children) than we would if schools stay closed.

-if schools are closed, children of working class parents will suffer long term consequences.  Their parents can’t stay home with them and help them with their schoolwork.  Middle class and wealthier parents will hire tutors or join “educational pods” where parents pool resources to monitor children doing school work, but not those from poorer backgrounds.  (And as others have noted, there will be more cases of suicide and spousal and child abuse.)

There are further economic issues that would follow either decision as well, but I’ll not delve into those here.  What I want to urge now is simply (a) not demonizing those you disagree with about this and (b) bearing in mind both the pros and cons if you have decision making capacity here. 

I keep myself limited to those two points as I really don’t know what the best route is for any school (and, of course, different schools in different locales with different population densities and with different student bodies, will be different).  I suspect a lot of thought will be going into it, and not just from current school administrators and school boards.  (And parents—the topic of a future post.)

Hopefully, new ideas will emerge that actually bring new approaches and new institutions that do better for children than schools now do.  Smaller schools with more parental decision making, more variety of teaching techniques, and yes, better use of technology to not merely monitor children and allow for physically distanced communication, but also to spark curiosity.  I can’t predict the innovations; I remain optimistic that they will come and that innovators will consider the many concerns as they seek to appeal to a wide customer base.

This pandemic is going to have long term effects.  We are likely to see more work at home across the board and less use of commercial office space and that may bring new opportunities for housing, lower rents in some areas, and reductions of city populations.  Better systems of education responding to these changes and the above challenges would be a wonderful outcome of a bad situation.

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Biden stands in schoolhouse door on educational choice

A Joe Biden administration would be bad news for parents who savor or crave school-choice options for their children. The bunker-dwelling presumptive Democratic presidential nominee knows that the teachers unions butter his bread. And Uncle Joe won’t let a bunch of pesky kids wreck that arrangement.

From charter schools to educational savings accounts to the Washington, D.C., school voucher program, the former vice president can’t wait to stand in the schoolhouse door and block boys and girls — especially Black and Brown ones — who dream of escaping crowded, dangerous government classrooms where learning happens by accident, if at all.

“I am not a charter school fan because it [sic] takes away the options available and money for public schools,” Biden told Georgetown, S.C., voters Feb. 26.

A similarly ungrammatical Biden told Pittsburgh voters Dec. 14: “And so if I’m president, [Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos’ whole notion from charter schools to this are gone.”

A participant at a May 28, 2019 American Federation of Teachers gathering in Houston complained to Biden that “charter schools continue to pull money out of our public schools for staffing and services for students. What is [sic] your plans to slow — stop the growth of unregulated for-profit charter schools?”

“I’ll stop them,” Biden warned. “I do not support any federal money — private money — for for-profit charter schools, period.”

Regarding charter schools in general, Biden added: “So, the bottom line is it [sic] siphons off money from our public schools which are already in enough trouble as well as it [sic] siphons off other assets as well.”

These teachers-union bosses must have been pleased with Biden. As OpenSecrets.org data confirms, the AFT’s $96,664,756 in political investments since 1990, 99.1 percent to Democrats, continue to pay obscene dividends.

Biden’s “Unity Task Force Recommendations” — crafted with and, in some passages, plagiarized from democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — mince no words here.

“Charter does not mean better,” the manifesto declares. “The goal was never to undermine the many extraordinary public schools in this country,” it continues, forgetting that charter schools are public schools. Biden-Sanders also would “Ban for-profit charter schools,” from all federal funds — potentially bad news for such charter operators as Academica Corporation, Basis Educational Ventures, and K12.

Biden-Sanders also would “Require charter schools, charter school authorizers, and charter school management companies to abide by the laws and regulations applicable to traditional public schools.”

As a July 21 EdChoice survey explains: “Charter schools are public schools that have more control over their own budget, staff, and curriculum, and are exempt from many existing public school regulations.”

So, by definition, Biden-Sanders would convert charters into standard government schools, just as sawing the wings off a Boeing 777 would transform it from a jet airplane into a metal tube.

The regulations that keep too many government schools from soaring often make it tough to sack inept instructors.

Biden’s War on School Choice saddens education scholars.

A 2018 New York State School Boards Association survey found that booting a bad teacher typically required six months and $141,722 in related salaries, benefits, and legal fees. Such cash could hire two brand-new New York City teachers, fresh out of college, at $57,845. The $26,032 balance could cover repairs, school supplies, or — what a concept! — be returned to taxpayers.

Some parents bank money to educate their kids. Moms and dads open and endow children’s bank accounts soon after birth. Others employ academic tax-credits.

Uncle Joe is not amused.

Biden-Sanders’ communique pledges to “Oppose any and all voucher and neo-voucher programs such as Education Savings Accounts and Tax-credit Scholarship programs.”

Cruelest of all, Biden is a sworn enemy of the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, also known as the DC Voucher Program. Since the 2004-2005 school year, this program has granted some 8,400 vouchers to 21,057 applicants, the Congressional Research Service reports.

In 2017-2018, 1,650 students used these “Pell Grants for kids” at 44 private schools. In 2018-2019, elementary- and middle-schoolers received up to $8,857 each; for high schoolers: $13,287, tops. These are bargains compared to the $21,974 that the District of Columbia public schools spent per pupil in the 2017 fiscal year, by the Census Bureau’s calculation.

These lower outlays buy higher results. Last year, 68 percent of Washington, D.C.’s government-school students graduated high school in four years. Among voucher students: 98 percent. Those who advanced to college in 2017 were, respectively, 56 percent and 86 percent.

A higher percentage of students in the DC Voucher Program are Black and Brown than their government-school counterparts. Voucher students are 74% Black and 17% Hispanic; government-school students: 67% Black and 16% Hispanic.

None of this has impressed Biden.

As a senator, he voted against DC Opportunity Scholarships on September 30, 1997 and January 22, 2004. The Obama-Biden administration then tried non-stop to defund DC Opportunity Scholarships. Congressional Republicans battled Obama and Biden and kept the scholarships alive.

But this program remains in Biden’s crosshairs. Biden-Sanders would: “discontinue funding” for Washington, D.C.’s voucher experiment.

Even beyond school choice, Biden-Sanders’ education plans involve head-spinning, left-wing social jargon. They aspire to “fund the development and implementation of assessment frameworks that … provide for holistic, deeper learning encompassing social, emotional and academic learning and are responsive to cultural and linguistic diversity.”

Whatever happened to reading, writing, and ’rithmetic?

Biden’s War on School Choice saddens education scholars.

“We used to have an influential group of school reform Democrats, some of whom served in the Obama administration,” said Williamson M. Evers, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Educational Excellence at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. “But now the Democrats and the Biden campaign are a wholly owned subsidiary of the teachers’ unions. These unions view non-union charter schools as a threat to them, but they are a lifesaver for minority kids and parents.”

“I suspect Biden has been more strident in his opposition to choice, including charters, lately to secure support of the more radical left-wing of the party, and of course teacher unions,” said Neal P. McCluskey, Ph.D., Director of the Washington, D.C-based Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “He may not be the relative centrist he was once thought to be.”

Along with law and order and entrepreneurship, school choice offers minority communities the most promising path to hope and opportunity. Joe Biden claims to believe that Black lives matter. Tragically, however, Black minds don’t matter to him at all.

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A plan to empower parents, increase education options as an uncertain school year looms

While I’m a big supporter of home schools, many single parents who work aren’t able to teach their kids at home. Even some parents with advanced educational degrees simply don’t want to teach their kids at home or believe their kids will listen more consistently to someone outside of the family. Some families are dysfunctional because of poverty or mental illness or lack of education and are not prepared to teach their kids at home. For some children, their best chance of witnessing a functional, civilized situation is at school.

In short, hundreds of thousands of children will receive a substandard education if we abandon in-person schools for another term.

If the government schools decide not to meet in person in the fall, I think every parent should have the right to take their tax dollars to the school of their choice.

Currently, federal education dollars are divided up between school districts. This week, I introduced legislation (the Support Children Having Open Opportunities for Learning [SCHOOL] Act), which I will also propose as an amendment to the next COVID bailout bill, to let the dollars follow the student to whatever school their parents choose.

The choices would include homeschool, the local public school or another public school that has in-person classes, or a private or parochial school.

It’s hard to imagine why anyone would oppose letting parents decide the school of their choice.

Imagine if the government ran grocery stores the way they run our schools. You don’t pay for your groceries; you pay a tax, and the government sends it to the store closest to your home. You don’t get to decide which store or what you want. You show up, and they give you a bag of groceries — doesn’t matter what you need or want. There would be a grocery board to decide what they stocked, and a grocery superintendent would hire and fire everyone there, regardless of what the customers thought.

What do you think the quality of your food and store would be? Seems pretty obvious to most people, yet that is how we run elementary and secondary education in this country and have for many years. It’s produced some pretty bad results, but what it’s also producing now is an unworkable situation for too many people.

The COVID situation cries out for a better solution.

My legislation would allow certain federal education dollars to follow the student, with the parents deciding which school their children attend, not the school system.

School choice also allows low-income and disadvantaged students who live in crime-ridden neighborhoods to escape their decaying schools and go to high-performing schools capable of meeting their needs and changing their futures.

My legislation takes certain funds appropriated for students under current law through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and allows them to follow the child to the school of their choice, whether the school is learning in person or remotely. It allows the parents and students to choose between public school, charter school, private school, and home school.

It would allow these funds to be used for direct tuition payments, curriculum materials, technological materials, tutoring, or education classes outside the home. It would also pay for support for special education needs.

Finally, my legislation ensures that students choosing any of the above options for schooling could still benefit from a federally funded school food program.

Parents and students are having a hard time right now. There is much uncertainty and confusion. While we might normally be school shopping right now, instead we are waiting for the latest update as to when — or IF — our schools might reopen, what they might look like if they did, and how much turmoil this next school year may bring to our children’s lives.

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There is a better way, and I’m proposing we take a giant step in that direction. Empower parents. Help students. Support their choices and needs.

As we seek relief from the dangers and troubles of COVID, let’s not forget our kids, and let’s not abandon parents to a one-size-fits-all government monopoly.

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School Teacher: We Don't Want You to Know the Radical Stuff We've Been Teaching Your Kids

Despite Democrats’ push for remote learning this fall, some public school teachers have concerns. Not because they’re worried about the quality of education children will receive, but because they don’t want parents to find out about the radical progressive agenda they’ve been pushing for years.

In a series of tweets on Saturday, a Philadelphia teacher, author, and columnist named Matthew R. Kay expressed anxiety about teachers’ ability to effectively accomplish their “equality/inclusion work” over Zoom calls when they can’t be sure who is overhearing them. The thread has since been hidden but was captured by Corey DeAngelis, director of school choice at the Reason Foundation.

“How much have students depended on the (somewhat) secure barriers of our physical classrooms to encourage vulnerability?” Kay asks. “How many of us have installed some version of ‘what happens here stay here’ to help this?”

Kay continues to outline his concerns about the “damage” that parents can do in “honest conversations about gender/sexuality.” While Kay says he is mainly concerned about conservative parents, he adds that those on the left can be harmful as well.

“If we are engaged in the messy work of destabilizing a kids [sic] racism or homophobia or transphobia - how much do we want their classmates' parents piling on?” he wonders.

One teacher replying to Kay concurred, calling parents "dangerous."

But many more took to Twitter to express outrage over the comments.

Conservatives have been sounding the alarm about public school indoctrination for years. Kay’s unwitting admission not only shows that these concerns are warranted but demonstrates just how entitled many teachers have become to indoctrinating other people’s children.

Ironically, Kay’s sentiments come even as teachers across the country protest a return to in-person instruction, citing COVID-19 concerns. In Arizona, a teachers’ union has planned a "death march" complete with gravestone-shaped signs bearing epitaphs blaming the governor for sacrificing them to the pandemic. After New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that schools would reopen in the fall, teachers pushed back, calling for remote classes and asking the governor how many teachers was planning to “kill.” And in Washington, D.C., public school teachers piled "body bags" outside administrative offices to protest returning to work.

But in light of Kay’s Twitter thread, closed public schools might not be such a loss after all. As DeAngelis points out, the rant highlights the need for school choice more than ever. Parents — not government employees — have the right and duty to educate their children in accordance with their values, whether that's through private school, parochial school, charter school, or homeschool.

Kay said the quiet part out loud. That should be all parents need to know to break the left’s education monopoly once and for all.

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