Back to School: No Excuses Rhode Island shows you can reopen schools, despite teachers unions.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/back-to-school-no-excuses-11599088867?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
Democrats have been saying for weeks that parents don’t want to send their kids back to school. They must have figured out this is false, judging by Joe Biden’s speech Wednesday blaming President Trump for the failure of some public schools to reopen.
“Let me be clear: if President Trump and his administration had done their jobs, America’s schools would be open,” the Democratic nominee said. “Instead, America’s families are paying the price for his failures.” So President Trump is to blame for not eradicating the virus, which no country has managed to do.
The main obstacle to reopening schools isn’t the virus. It’s the teachers’ unions. The virus has been under control in New York City for months, yet the teachers union this week threatened a strike unless classroom instruction was delayed. Mayor Bill de Blasio naturally surrendered, though state law prohibits teachers from striking.
Mr. Biden and the unions say schools can’t safely reopen without hundreds of billions of more dollars from the feds. But states still haven’t spent much of the $13.5 billion that Congress appropriated in March for schools or $150 billion in general virus relief. And many states have worked to return to classrooms.
Consider Rhode Island, where Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo announced Monday that all school districts save Providence and Central Falls, which have had more virus cases, were cleared to begin full in-person instruction on Sept. 14. Providence, whose failing schools last year were taken over by the state, is still planning to bring elementary school, special needs and multilingual students back to classrooms the week of Sept. 14. But higher grades will start the year with a mix of in-person and distance learning.
Ms. Raimondo noted that the state has equipped every district with masks, thermometers and hand sanitizer and set up a separate testing system for schools. “We will be establishing more than a dozen dedicated swab sites for students and teachers, and we have 10 rapid machines to test students and teachers who develop symptoms during the school day,” she noted.
The teachers unions as usual are objecting to the reopening, but Ms. Raimondo warned that districts that don’t reopen for in-person learning might face lawsuits from parents or lose federal funds. She also said the state is reviewing its “legal remedies” and may allow parents to send their kids to schools in other districts if theirs don’t reopen. That would mean schools that don’t reopen would lose state dollars.
By contrast, California’s Democratic Legislature this summer shielded public schools that lose students amid the pandemic from also losing per-student funding. This week the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is keeping schools closed, reported that student enrollment had dropped this year by 12,000 including some 6,000 kindergartners.
Juan Flecha, president of the local principals union, told the Los Angeles Times: “I think parents are finding it extraordinarily difficult to manage their personal and professional lives while somehow keeping the tykes engaged on a device.” Parents are finding ways to get kids back to classrooms, including in some cases moving elsewhere. States have an obligation to make classroom education work.
Comments are closed.
