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Editorial: Trump has zero understanding of what it will take to safely reopen U.S. schools
Los Angeles Times
By THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD
JULY 8, 20201:22 PM
President Trump wants to have it both ways: He is pressuring U.S. public schools to reopen, citing nations such as Germany, Denmark and France that have led the way, while insisting that our schools don’t need the kind of money that those countries have spent on safely reopening.
Trump seems to think he can ignore the serious surges of COVID-19 in many states and return the schools to nearly pre-pandemic normal just by wishing it. Do it fast, do it on the cheap — or else.
He’s also ignoring the nation’s own experts, but what’s new about that? Although the administration’s top infectious disease official, Anthony Fauci, supports school reopening, he says the decisions need to be left to local officials who should take into account the infection rates in their areas. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set out guidelines on how to reopen schools as safely as possible, calling for such things as separating students, which means reducing class sizes; running school buses with a fraction of the passengers; providing more school supplies so kids don’t share them; and requiring masks.
Trump’s magical thinking finds the CDC’s guidance unnecessarily expensive, so the White House has directed the agency to make it less tough — a change that could damage the agency’s credibility. He’s also threatened to withhold funds from states that don’t broadly reopen schools. He praises countries such as Denmark without mentioning that even before the pandemic, classes there held only 20 students on average, and they have been split into much smaller groups for reopening.
Trump seems to think he can ignore the serious surges of COVID-19 in many states and return the schools to nearly pre-pandemic normal just by wishing it. Do it fast, do it on the cheap — or else.
He’s also ignoring the nation’s own experts, but what’s new about that? Although the administration’s top infectious disease official, Anthony Fauci, supports school reopening, he says the decisions need to be left to local officials who should take into account the infection rates in their areas. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set out guidelines on how to reopen schools as safely as possible, calling for such things as separating students, which means reducing class sizes; running school buses with a fraction of the passengers; providing more school supplies so kids don’t share them; and requiring masks.
Trump’s magical thinking finds the CDC’s guidance unnecessarily expensive, so the White House has directed the agency to make it less tough — a change that could damage the agency’s credibility. He’s also threatened to withhold funds from states that don’t broadly reopen schools. He praises countries such as Denmark without mentioning that even before the pandemic, classes there held only 20 students on average, and they have been split into much smaller groups for reopening.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-07-08/editorial-trump-trivializes-the-challenge-facing-u-s-schools
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