Don’t worry, mom and dad, send your kids to school. Dr. DeSantis knows best | Opinion
With the coronavirus on a rampage, President Trump has commanded that all public schools reopen, and has vowed to cut federal funding for those that don’t.
Oooh, what a big scary person! All over the country, principals and superintendents must be shaking in their boots.
Nope. Trump has exactly zero authority over local school districts, and what federal monies they receive — a small fraction of their budgets — is decided by Congress, not the president.
Once again, Trump is croaking out empty threats to act tough and, once again, he looks likes an ignorant gasbag. Now he’s leaning on the CDC to soften its guidelines for safe classroom reopenings.
In many places where the virus is thriving, school administrators have been working on hybrid plans for restarting with a mix of online studies and socially distanced attendance.
Last week Trump trotted out seldom-seen Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for a conference call to pressure governors, saying hybrid systems developed for the pandemic don’t work and are unacceptable.
Up to now, DeVos’ only role in the health crisis was steering coronavirus relief funds to private schools. A billionaire who has little experience with public education, her credibility is only marginally higher than Trump’s.
Every parent in America wants their kids back in school, but nobody wants them bringing home COVID-19. Teachers’ unions, which have reacted strongly to Trump’s toothless tweets, support reopening if it can be done with a low risk of spreading the disease.
Some places are much safer than others. Obviously what works for schools in Fargo, North Dakota, isn’t going to work in virus hot zones such as Phoenix or Houston.
That’s why a presidential demand to reopen everywhere is so dumb and reckless — pure political theater. Trump desperately wants to brag of a return to normalcy as he campaigns for re-election.
In Florida, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis — obedient as a beagle on Trump’s leash — ordered that all brick-and-mortar public and charter schools be operating five days a week in August. While the decree sounds firm, local districts have the power to override it.
That’s what happening in communities where the virus is raging and hospitals are filling again with coronavirus patients.
School officials in Miami-Dade County said they’ll reopen cautiously in their own way, in their own time. The superintendent in hard-hit Broward said basically the same thing, adding that he “will never compromise the health” of teachers and students.
So many Floridians have now tested positive for COVID-19 that almost everyone knows somebody who’s gotten sick from it, which is why DeSantis’ upbeat act isn’t playing so well.
Back in April, the governor brought his coronavirus poster charts to the White House for a mutually laudatory photo-op with the president and, in May, he essentially declared victory over the disease.
Flash forward to now, when Florida has more confirmed cases than Germany or France (and less than a third of the population). Seven times in the past two weeks, the state’s single-day coronavirus scoreboard has surpassed 9,000 positive tests.
There are so many cases that effective contact tracing is a fantasy. Last Thursday, another bleak milestone: the COVID-related deaths of 120 state residents, the worst one-day total since the pandemic began, pushing the toll past 4,000.
Yet DeSantis, ever echoing Trump, insists Florida is in better shape than ever to deal with the disease. He has attributed the soaring numbers to everything except his own refusal to dial back even to Phase 1 as the virus re-surged.
Along the way, the governor has variously blamed the jump in cases on increased testing, labs “dumping” their results all at once, outbreaks among farm workers, outbreaks at prisons and, lately, careless socializing among young people who — don’t worry — are either asymptomatic or not getting terribly sick.
DeSantis is running low on alibis. Deaths keep rising, the positive rate on some days exceeds 20 percent, hospitalizations are up dramatically (the state hasn’t released those numbers), many ICUs are full and some front-line medical workers are complaining about shortages of PPEs.
Only in the science-free parallel universe occupied by Trump and DeSantis is Florida in good shape.
And now these same stable geniuses are telling you it’s safe to put your kids on a bus and send them back to school, which in the real universe depends on where you live and what the schools are doing to keep students and teachers safe.
For parents, the choice is simple: You can listen to the experts with actual medical degrees, or you can listen to vaudeville politicians pretending to be experts.
No big deal. All that’s at stake is your children.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 5:36 PM.