It takes the editors of the New York Times five paragraphs before they reach the real sticking point in reopening public primary and secondary schools. The gravest problem isn’t protecting children or assuaging the concerns of parents. Here it is:
Teachers’ unions are rightly worried for the safety of their members. Apprehension is running especially high among school employees over 65, an age group of people especially vulnerable to coronavirus infection. An analysis by John Bailey of the American Enterprise Institute shows that 18 percent of teachers and 27 percent of principals fall into the high-risk age category. Districts might end up offering buyouts for some their most vulnerable employees — and finding roles outside of schools for the others. This could create a staff shortage at precisely the time when districts are trying to lower the risk of spreading infection by cutting class size and staggering schedules to limit population density in school buildings.
Elected officials have deepened people’s anxiety over these problems by fixating more on resurrecting bars and restaurants than on schools. Over and over again, we’ve witnessed a laissez-faire approach to reopening that lets each locality go its own way. In some places, discussions on reopening schools is being carried out behind closed doors or without consulting parents’ groups that clearly should have been involved from the beginning. In still other places, officials are whistling right past this volatile issue, mouthing vague platitudes about wearing masks and allowing a little more space among children’s desks.
I do not believe there is a solution to this problem so long as the matter is viewed from the standpoint of eliminating risk rather than managing it or mitigating it. IMO that has been the persistent problem since March. Our public institutions are only willing to accept absolutist strategies.
Even should the easing of lockdowns proceed without the feared surges in new cases of COVID-19, that will not resolve the problem for the teachers’ unions. I’ve already proposed a strategy for managing the risk. I recognize that it flies in the face of the seniority system sacrosanct among teachers’ unions.
The tragedy is that those hurt most by lengthy school shutdowns are those who need schools the most, particularly black and Hispanic children and children with special needs. Oh, well. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
So purely anecdotal, but perhaps indicative of the issue with public services, as I’ve pointed out ad nauseum for years.
My daughter’s start date with KIPs stands. These are the proverbial “underprivileged” kids she will be teaching, but those whose parents have expressed an interest in serious education, not glorified babysitting. Her biggest worry is that classes will be taught remotely, foolish if you think about it. These are second graders, in the prime of development. Zoom? Seriously?
But KIPs is not governed by the politically motivated/union mentality in the DC public schools hierarchy. If people really care about the kids, open up the public schools. I make an exception for older people. But make the necessary accommodations, don’t take the whole system down.
“In an announcement that highlights once again how little scientists understand about the new coronavirus (as the NYT’s Nick Kristoff once noted, viruses are “full of puzzles”), the WHO announced that asymptomatic carriers of the virus apparently don’t infect nearly as many others as we once thought.
Early evidence indicated that the virus could spread via person-to-person contact, even if the carrier didn’t have symptoms. But WHO officials now say that while asymptomatic spread is certainly possible, it’s not the main route of transmission.
“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said during a Monday briefing from the WHO’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.â€
Of course, if scientists continue to see data showing asymptomatic spread isn’t a main factor in transmission, it could have dramatic implications for containment policy, including diminishing the need for social distancing, and allowing students and workers to return to the workplace in much larger numbers.”
Heh. Science. But I’m not worried. We have a guy here who reads science articles professionally – so we mere mortals don’t have to – so I’m sure we, well, he, will get to the bottom of it.
Not sure why the story changes almost by the day and we are supposed to slavishly obey………….but…….its all so confusing to the common man. I give up. I’ll leave it to the, uh, scientists…..
Why didnt this Porsche engineers give us the 911 until 1963? We should have had that in the 1920s.
Back on OT, the incidence does seem to be really low in younger kids. I am thinking we could certainly copy Sweden and open up for the 14 and under crowd. May need some more research on the inflammatory syndrome before you can convince some mothers to send their kids back.
Steve