The Great College Depression Begins: Three Ohio Tales

Major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post are writing stories about how Covid-19 is devastating universities and towns surrounding them, particularly in Flyover Country, that part of America located away from the Atlantic or Pacific Coasts where media, business and political elites too often think most of the great minds and wisdom of our nation are found. The Times, for example, recently focused on the University of Akron, and Ohio University, where I reside. Let me speak briefly about three universities in the Buckeye State, including those two.

These schools are getting clobbered financially. Enrollments have been falling for years, so the schools were already in tenuous financial shape before Covid-19. The University of Akron in 1989 had 28,967 students; 30 years later, in fall 2019, it had 17,743, 38.7% fewer. What this fall: maybe 15,000? Moreover, early in this century, Akron went on a huge building splurge including a large fancy stadium, unsuccessfully hoping to attract students, but instead incurring a huge debt burden. Complicating things, another large state school, Kent State, is but 13 miles (16 minutes) away.

As Inside Higher Ed put it, Akron recently had a “bloodbath.” It fired 97 full-time professors, some tenured, after another 21 had already resigned or retired. This continued a major program retrenchment begun in 2018. Whole disciplines are being decimated, no doubt ending several majors. Meanwhile, of course, the school still subsidizes intercollegiate sports with more than $20 million annually, justly infuriating the faculty.

Conference rival Ohio University (OU) is the oldest Midwest university, with a gorgeous campus including 200-year-old buildings. Reeking in tradition, it inspired David McCullough’s recent best seller, The Pioneers, and is the school where Lyndon Johnson proclaimed his Great Society. A selective admission school with a decent-sized (by state school standards) endowment, OU over the past decade ignored the basics (maintaining high academic standards), lowering entrance requirements to maximize enrollments, while emphasizing political correctness regarding things like sustainability and diversity. A flight to quality in higher ed hurt schools like Ohio University that lowered high academic standards. Huge budget woes have forced it to let roughly 400 staff go, including a good number of faculty, vast numbers of supporting workers, but absolutely no, to my knowledge, high priced administrators, nor have any sizable cuts come to the $20 million plus athletics subsidy required so OU can compete annually in the Last Resort Bowl or its equivalent.

Wright State University in Dayton has had the most perilous decade of all. A new university, founded only in 1967, it grew substantially and by 2011 had 18,275 students; in fall 2019, the number had declined by 32% to 12,423, Wracked by internal dissent, in February 2019 the faculty went on a 20-day strike severely hurting the institution. Its finances have been extremely precarious. Founded originally as a branch of both Ohio State and Miami Universities, both schools are within about an hour’s drive of the Wright campus, as is the University of Cincinnati. Do you need four major public universities within an hour of Dayton, a city with fewer residents than 100 years ago, which also has a fine private school (University of Dayton) as well as a large community college (Sinclair)?

My guess is something important will happen regarding minimally one of these colleges. Ohio University, academically the highest quality, better endowed, and more geographically isolated from competing institutions, will likely survive, possibly even flourish if it renews its previous emphasis on excellence. Wright State is extremely vulnerable to merger into one or more surrounding institutions. Some sort of merger or increased cooperation between Akron and Kent State also seems likely. Some observers go further, predicting remote learning and alternatives to traditional degrees (like coding academies) may doom most vulnerable American universities.

Ohio is probably fairly typical. The short term prognosis is: Highly unpredictable, but with falling enrollments, rising expenses (money for masks, testing, etc.), loss of athletic revenue, declining state subsidies, falling endowment income and donor grants, half-filled dorm rooms, declining international enrollments, etc.—very bad financial outlooks, even for elite schools suffering smaller enrollment loss. Some low-cost community colleges, however, may actually gain enrollments. But Covid-19 will kill off some schools.

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Teachers' Unions Take to the Streets With the Radical Left, Even While Insisting It's Not Safe to Return to School

Teachers’ unions in many major metros, and other places that might surprise you, have thrown in completely with the radical left. They have partnered with the Democratic Socialists of America and other extremist groups to make some astounding demands in order to allow your children to return to school.

These groups are coming together today for a “Day of Action” to make demands of school districts that have nothing to do with the pandemic. They are explicitly taking advantage of misinformation in the media, liability concerns for school districts, and parental fears to leverage political outcomes that are far to the left of mainstream views.

So while they say your children can’t go back to school safely, they are taking to the streets today. because, as we all know, COVID-19 can’t be transmitted if you are protesting something the left agrees with. The increase in cases in every major metro where protests and riots occurred tells a different story, but our Heath Experts™ have told us racial justice is more important than flattening the curve.

So what are their Common Good demands? They range from free housing to a wealth tax. The demands also eliminate programs that allow parents a choice in how and where their children are educated. An elimination of standardized testing, one of the ways we can measure educational effectiveness, is also called for. This demand could be because it is one way for charter and voucher programs to demonstrate how they improve outcomes for students.

The entire agenda can be discarded based on the first demand. Every bit of scientific evidence collected from other nations demonstrates children are not a significant factor in the transmission of COVID-19. According to a rapid review of research published by The National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools in Canada on July 24:

Key Points

Based on the published reports to date, children are not a major source of transmission of COVID-19. The quality of evidence is moderate, and findings are consistent.

Analyses of infection clusters revealed that for children who were infected, transmission was traced back to community and home settings or adults, rather than amongst children within daycares or schools. Within household clusters, adults were much more
likely to be the index case than children. The quality of evidence is moderate, and findings are consistent.

In fact, there is not a single documented case of a child infecting an adult in an educational or daycare setting globally. This fact was clearly demonstrated by genetic testing in Iceland months ago. Using a much more specific method than contact tracing by genetically mapping the virus, they could not find a single case of transmission from a child to an adult.

This weekend the CDC reiterated guidance initially published on July 23. There are significant risks, beyond those related to the virus, that demand the vast majority of our children return to in-person instruction:

Scientific studies suggest that COVID-19 transmission among children in schools may be low.  International studies that have assessed how readily COVID-19 spreads in schools also reveal low rates of transmission when community transmission is low.  Based on current data, the rate of infection among younger school children, and from students to teachers, has been low, especially if proper precautions are followed.  There have also been few reports of children being the primary source of COVID-19 transmission among family members.[6],[7],[8]  This is consistent with data from both virus and antibody testing, suggesting that children are not the primary drivers of COVID-19 spread in schools or in the community.[9],[10],[11]  No studies are conclusive, but the available evidence provides reason to believe that in-person schooling is in the best interest of students, particularly in the context of appropriate mitigation measures similar to those implemented at essential workplaces.

The mitigation methods should likely be focused on the teachers, not the students. Several other industrialized nations, including the Public Health Agency of Canada, have decided to advise against enforced social distancing or masks for children, especially the very young:

Masks in general are not recommended for those without symptoms to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. Students/children and staff who are experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness should stay home from the school/childcare setting. Surgical masks in school/childcare settings is not recommended, as these are not settings where people are typically trained on their use, and there is a potential risk of infection with improper mask use and disposal. In young children in particular, masks can be irritating and may lead to increased touching of the face and eyes.

Parents should be asking why there are over 20 other industrialized nations that have returned children to school, many with minimal restrictions. Then they need to ask what eliminating rent and mortgage payments have to do with public school teachers fulfilling the social contract to provide an education to children in their communities.

Los Angeles Teachers Unions Demand Money and Political Action to Reopen Schools
If the teachers’ unions are trying to demonstrate how non-essential they are, they are doing an excellent job. Marching in the streets for leftist political goals while asserting that they can not safely return to the classroom is the height of absurdity.

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Study Shows The Harsh Reality of Effectively, Affordably Testing College Students For COVID-19

College campuses can't safely reopen this fall unless they test students every two-three days, according to a study released on Friday.

The findings from Yale and Harvard researchers, published in the JAMA Network Open journal, claim that unless students are tested every few days to help manage the spread of the virus, along with other strict social distancing guidelines.

Researchers said that even lower-quality testing that may only detect 70 percent of positive COVID-19 cases at a two-day rate is a more cost-effective system than higher-quality testing once a week.

To conduct their study, the authors used a modeling scenario that incorporated a residential campus with 5,000 students, including 4,990 students uninfected with the COVID-19 and 10 who were asymptomatic but had tested positive for the virus. The time frame stretched from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, an 80-day time frame.

In the modeling, the reachers failed to find a realistic circumstance in which waiting to test until symptoms emerge would be a sufficient way to prevent an outbreak.

They estimated the per-student cost for the semester implementing the preferred testing strategy would be between $120 and $910. They also revealed "no circumstance in this modeling study under which symptom-based screening alone would be sufficient to contain an outbreak.”

The study also found that testing too many students could generate false-positive cases that may weaken student assurance in their university's testing system and overwhelm quarantine spaces.

David Paltiel, a Yale public health professor and the study's lead author, believes these findings aren't meant to discourage colleges from reopening but to inform the public of the method that involves the least risk of spread.

“It is possible to reopen U.S. residential colleges safely in the fall,” Paltiel said in a statement, “but it will require high-cadence screening in addition to strict adherence to masking, social distancing, and other preventive practices.”

The results from the study come after several colleges said that they would not be returning in the fall, even though many had said earlier in the summer they would likely bring students back to campus. These schools include elite schools with high tuition costs such as Georgetown, Duke, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Some colleges announced a delayed start like the College of William and Mary, Ohio University, and College of Charleston.

However, a majority of colleges have still not clarified exactly they plan to keep students safe this fall and prevent a massive spread in the surrounding community. 

Only a small fraction of U.S colleges have announced that they have the testing capabilities to adhere to proper testing guidelines. Such schools include Yale, Boston University, Colby College. Harvard also plans on aggressive testing for the 40 percent of undergraduates it plans to have back on campus this fall.

Other colleges like Cornell are only testing their students once a week. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill officials argue that testing every student could “create a false sense of security," and only plan to test students who show symptoms.

Colleges are largely divided on how to effectively monitor the spread and control student behavior. There is no uniform plan across the board, and it varies from school to school, even those in the same city.

The researchers behind the study even admit the task is nearly impossible for most schools, as it "sets a very high bar—logistically, financially, and behaviorally."

"Any school that cannot meet these minimum screening standards or maintains uncompromising control over good prevention practices has to ask itself if it has any business reopening,” said Paltiel.

More colleges are expected to make a final decision in the coming weeks about their official return plans for the fall.

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Teachers protest reopening of US schools while coronavirus lurks

Chicago: Teachers and support staff at more than 35 school districts across the United States on Monday staged protests over plans to resume in-class instruction while COVID-19 is surging in many parts of the country.

The protesters, who formed car caravans and attached signs and painted messages on their vehicles, demand schools hold off until scientific data supports such a move.

Rachel Bardes holds a sign in front of the Orange County Public Schools headquarters as teachers protest with a car parade around the administration centre in Orlando, Florida.
Rachel Bardes holds a sign in front of the Orange County Public Schools headquarters as teachers protest with a car parade around the administration centre in Orlando, Florida.CREDIT:AP

They want districts to wait until safety protocols such as lower class sizes and virus testing are established, and schools are staffed with an adequate number of counsellors and nurses, according to a website set up for the demonstrations.

On Twitter, the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association showed protesters making fake gravestones that said, "Here lies a third grade student from Green Bay who caught COVID at school" and "RIP Grandma caught COVID helping grand kids with homework."

Coronavirus deaths are rising in 31 states, up from 27 states a week ago, according to a Reuters analysis of the past two weeks compared with the prior two weeks. More than 155,000 people have died of COVID-19 related illness in the United States, the most in the world.

Teachers also are demanding financial help for parents in need, including rent and mortgage assistance, a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and cash assistance.

Many of these issues are at the centre of a political tussle in Washington, where Democrats in Congress and Trump administration officials resumed talks on Monday to hammer out a coronavirus economic relief bill after missing a deadline to extend benefits to tens of millions of jobless Americans.

Education employees in Chicago, Milwaukee and Philadelphia honked their horns in socially distanced car protests. Protesters rallied outside the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building and in the Hartford, Connecticut, area, about 400 formed a car march that went by Governor Ned Lamont's home.

"I do not want to put my students or myself in harm's way. I do not want to be an experiment," Andrea Parker, an elementary school teacher in Chicago, told reporters before a car protest.

In a Lincoln, Nebraska, protest, a handful of people blocked the SUV of Governor Pete Ricketts as he left a briefing, a video on Twitter showed. "We are asking him to not try to kill children," one of the protesters said to an officer who asked them to clear the way for the governor's vehicle.

Trailing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in opinion polls, President Donald Trump has made school reopenings for classroom instruction in August and September part of his November re-election campaign.

"Cases up because of BIG Testing! Much of our Country is doing very well. Open the Schools!" the Republican Trump tweeted on Monday.

While reported case numbers, rising in 28 states according to the Reuters analysis, may be linked to more testing, the rise in hospitalisations and deaths have no connection to an increase in testing.

The United States is in a new phase of the outbreak with infections in rural areas as well as cities, Deborah Birx, the coordinator of Trump's coronavirus task force, said on Sunday.

Pelosi likens Trump to 'man who refuses to ask for directions'
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chastised President Donald Trump and compared his response to the COVID-19 pandemic to that of a 'man who refuses to ask for directions.'

Previously hard-hit, densely populated parts of New York and New Jersey reduced the spread of the virus with stiff restrictions on movement and gatherings and healthcare measures. On Monday, however, faced with more new cases linked to indoor events, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy reduced indoor limits to 25 people per room from 100.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would determine later this week based on the infection rate whether to reopen schools. Cuomo said of states including Florida and Texas now suffering casualties: "It was a mistake to deny the reality that happened in New York."

On Monday, Trump accused Birx of capitulating to criticism from Democrats that his administration's response to the pandemic has been ineffective.

"So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combating the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!" Trump tweeted.

House of Representatives Speaker Pelosi said on CNN that Birx "enabled" Trump, who played down the seriousness of the virus in the early stages and pushed for a quick reopening of the economy following weeks of lockdowns.

"I don't have confidence in anyone who stands there while the President says swallow Lysol and it's going to cure your virus," Pelosi said, referring to Trump asking at a briefing in April whether injecting disinfectant into the body could be a treatment, leading manufacturers to warn against doing so.

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