https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/02/science-or-science-fiction/
When pressed about the reason for closing schools as a way to limit the spread of Covid-19, the comment you mostly hear from the teachers unions and other shutdown hawks is, “Follow the science!” Typical is American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten who declared in an online interview in August, “Decisions on school re-openings should be left to scientists and experts, not ideologues.” But clearly Weingarten and other power brokers are the ideologues who are making these decisions, often as a ploy to advance their agenda, much of which concerns massive amounts of money being poured into education.
According to the most recent Covid Tracking Project data, 43.5 percent of students in the U.S. were attending virtual-only schools. Big city districts with powerful teachers unions have been especially hard hit. Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago are offering online-only instruction at this time and for the foreseeable future.
The schools in the unionized Fresno Unified School District in central California are only open for homeless and special needs kids. The Fresno Teachers Association has said the district should remain in distance learning at least through the end of the year, and prepare for a “safe, healthy and limited physical return” in the future. But right next door in Clovis, which has never had a teachers union, parents have a choice. They are free to send their kids back to school, or can have them learn at home via Zoom.
Taking Weingarten’s advice, let’s look at what actual scientists are saying.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield asserts that “school is one of the safest places” for children. Also, drawing on an assessment of data from 31 countries, UNICEF maintains that “there is strong evidence that, with basic safety measures in place, the net benefits of keeping schools open outweigh the costs of closing them.” Moreover, the findings of a major British study reveal that it was a mistake to close schools. “The results demonstrate no evidence of serious harms from COVID-19 to adults in close contact with children, compared to those living in households without children. This has implications for determining the benefit-harm balance of children attending school in the COVID-19 pandemic.” In October’s Great Barrington Declaration, world renowned scientists noted that keeping children out of school is a “grave injustice.”