schools - More than a billion students miss class - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

More than a billion students miss class - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Map: Ryan Heath / POLITICO Source: UNESCO

President Donald Trump is right that children face a lower risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, and Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist member of the British government’s pandemic advisory committee, says there is no recorded case worldwide of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil. But the administration is missing key context when it points to European countries with open schools as a model to follow, A combination of three factors exist in Europe, New Zealand, Australia and other countries, which enabled them to re-open their schools. 1. The virus is under control because of widely adhered nationwide pandemic rules. We’re talking daily deaths in the single digits. 2. They have functional safety nets of universal health care and public schools with enough funds to adapt to hybrid learning or other teaching models. 3. Teachers unions have typically been involved in planning from the get-go. That’s essential, because teachers are the only viable enforcers of new safety rules. Everywhere else is missing at least one of these ingredients, and in the U.S. all three ingredients are missing in most states and at the federal level. Even if Congress this week or next approved the $116.5 billion, or even some portion of it, that the American Federation of Teachers wants for safety upgrades, it would take weeks and probably months to deliver the boost. Whatever the plan, it takes time to get back into the classroom. The World Health Organization has a 54-point checklist. South Korea delayed its reopening five times. Most successful countries staggered reopening, starting with the youngest children first. Even so, in Germany, where at least some classes are operating in every state, as many as 30 percent of teachers are ill, isolating, at-risk or unwilling to teach. Israel messed up badly: Its schools reopened in May, not with the under-9s as originally planned, but with all ages together. When a heat wave swelled temperatures to more than 100 degrees F, mask requirements were dropped. Outbreaks followed quickly, causing a new shutdown. The country’s top health official resigned, claiming his advice had been ignored.