Free Republic

It was only a matter of time before the government would enlist teachers to work in the migrant shelters sprouting up due to the crisis at the border.When people accuse me of being a glorified babysitter because I’m a teacher, I usually laugh and respond, “Who said anything about being glorified?” During the COVID-19 lockdowns, I can now add, “Who said anything about being a babysitter?” These days, teachers in many parts of the country are paid for doing next to nothing since reopening schools would expose them to the virus. For teachers who have returned to the classroom, much...

The state’s health secretary said the decision to earmark the state’s initial batches of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to school employees and child care workers is not delaying senior citizens and those with high-risk health conditions from their turn at getting the vaccine. Rather, Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said it is intended to vaccinate educators without putting additional stress on the efforts underway by hospitals or providers to get shots in the arms of those in the Phase 1A of the state’s vaccination program. “We know that there is significant interest among all Pennsylvanians about when they...

I think we’re at a crucial point in this debate on school reopening right now. Case rates are dropping quickly, the surge is over, and people are starting to get vaccinated — though way too slowly of course. The public health community, including the CDC, have reached consensus that reopening schools is an urgent priority (instead of citing all my sources, I’m going to do more of a free-write here, so feel free to reach out if you want me to cite a source for anything I write here). This is because the harms of prolonged school closure vastly outnumber...

Joe Biden is falling back into nakedly partisan politics in which teachers’ unions get what they want no matter what the evidence shows or common sense dictates.Outside of his family, few people believe Joe Biden will seek a second term in 2024, at age 82. Thus, he is uniquely positioned to rise above partisan politics, stand up to the special interests and put regular Americans first. But if the debate about re-opening schools is any guide, Biden is wasting that opportunity and falling back into nakedly partisan politics in which the Democratic Party’s biggest donors—here, teachers’ unions—get what they want...

Under Cindy Marten's leadership, San Diego schools engaged in legal battles and eventually settlements over multiple sex abuse cases.resident Joe Biden recently nominated San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Superintendent Cindy Marten to lead the U.S. Department of Education, but despite her title, the education administrator has a long history of mishandling education policy and misconduct.Not only does Marten want to keep schools closed in the name of COVID, even though science and health officials have warned against extending students’ remote learning, but she also has spent years of her career and time writing off concerns about sexual assault, violence,...

With the summer drawing to a close, the big question for nearly 60 million U.S. school-age children is whether they can return to school for in-person learning, or must remain at home limited to virtual education. States and municipalities differ widely on whether and how to re-open schools based on differing assessments of the risks of COVID-19 to children if they are in direct contact with each other and with teachers. Teachers’ unions are resisting school re-opening with political demands that have nothing to do with teaching, such as defunding the police, passage of Medicare-for-All, and elimination of competing charter...

In most cases, a single student or staff COVID-19 case at a newly reopened school in Pennsylvania will not require an immediate shutdown of the building. But two or more cases within a 14-day period could force at least a short-term building closure, and any school that hits five cases within two weeks would be shuttered for at least two weeks. The new guidelines are the last big piece of the puzzle for school districts seeking at least a partial return to the classroom for students and teachers this summer, and they once again put a premium on the need...

The nation’s largest teachers’ union says many of its members are so anxious about returning to school that some are preparing with “living wills and life insurance.” According to NEA Today, the news outlet for the National Education Association (NEA), “anxious educators have a message for administrators and lawmakers: ‘We want to teach our students, but we don’t want to die doing it.’”

Prominent Democrat politicians have started making huge concessions on reopening schools. Back in May, Democrats pounced after President Trump supported reopening. Despite the data finding precisely the opposite, it quickly became the Democrat-media complex line that opening schools this fall would be preposterously dangerous to children and teachers.In July, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan to put the city’s 1.1 million school kids back in schools half the week and “online learning” the rest of the week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo picked a public fight with him, saying, “If anybody sat here today...

I’m sad that I missed the prom last spring. I’m sad that I missed my final day of 11th grade and saying goodbye to my graduating senior friends. I’m even sad that I missed studying for finals and taking AP tests in a crowded gymnasium and experiencing the exhausted feeling of relief that follows. But that doesn’t mean I think we should have kept schools open. Unhappy as I may feel, I know the momentary joy of a school dance, even one as momentous as prom, was not worth the accompanying danger to public health. I know that school closures...

Parents across the country are facing big questions about schools reopening in the fall. Will they open at all? If they do, what will school be like for the kids? Schools have reopened in Europe and Asia without problems. Surely, the same can happen in the United States, right? In California, the decision on whether to reopen schools seems to be largely a political one. As PJM’s Rick Moran noted, “Liberal Los Angeles will be closed, conservative Orange County will open.” It’s sad, but that’s how America rolls these days. Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and officials in the state are at odds over a county's decision to mandate private schools to begin virtual-only learning this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic. Health officials in Montgomery County last week made the decision to keep private and parochial schools closed through October for in-person learning, arguing that having students in the classroom would present a danger to pupils and teachers as the state grapples with COVID-19. But Hogan blasted the move over the weekend, saying: "I strongly disagree with Montgomery County's decision to mandate the closure of private and parochial schools." "As long...

It’s an indictment of Republican leadership that President Trump, who like most businessmen knows nearly nothing about education, still has better political instincts on this. When schools shut down this spring, Congress sent them $31 billion — nearly half its annual schools outlay — for sanitation and online learning, even though students weren’t in schools to theoretically contaminate them and online learning barely happened for millions of children. The vast majority of this money has not even reached schools yet.Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal reports that education special interests are demanding, through their Democrat representatives, nearly half a trillion in...

RUSH: Raging argument in America over whether or not to send our kids back to school. Do you realize how ridiculous this is? We have never, even during the Spanish flu pandemic, we have never done what we are doing now, and we have certainly never been governed by fear. And we now have an entire political party that wants this country shut down as much as it can be — economically, educationally, you name it. It is obscene. And they are doing this for one reason — they can’t find a way to either defeat or get rid of...

Rachel Greszler and her husband have managed a chaotic household with six children since mid-March when they ended up with everyone at home full-time, while still trying to juggle their jobs. “My concern is … inevitably our children aren’t going to be on the same schedule. And so it’s going to be trying to manage five different schedules, and who’s going to school on which day, and when do you have to be online?” Greszler said. “My personal opinion is that, if you look at the science behind this, children are less affected by COVID-19 than even the seasonal flu,...

Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday he’s willing to “pull the plug” on school reopening if a new surge of COVID-19 infections continues to grow. Yet it might be irrelevant, he said, because fear of catching the disease would likely keep teachers and students away anyway. Wolf and others cited that potential as a major factor in the decision to impose the new restrictions on restaurants, bars and indoor gatherings announced Wednesday. With only about six weeks remaining before the start of school, it’s critical to bring the surge under control now, they stressed. “If we do not get community disease...

We are sacrificing AmericaÂ’s youth on the altar of our own fear. And it is a travesty. We talk at length in America about the state of our schools. We debate class sizes, curriculum, zoning, funding, teacher qualifications and pay, and now weÂ’re debating whether schools should open. They should.IÂ’ve written about the problems of indoctrination plaguing New York City schools, and IÂ’ve heard from parents that this is happening across the country. This, however, is a call to action, not to shut down schooling. Children and teens need to be in school. Regardless of plague, famine, or war, schooling...