Now that Dems are losing elections, they’re waking up to the fact that schools need to get back to normal. From Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times:
Got that? It’s not important for the kids that they be back in school. It’s not important for *Dems* that the kids be back in school:
Democrats Desperately Need Schools to Get Back to Normal- important article "Because America’s response to Covid was so politically polarized, school shutdowns longest in blue states..only 6 states had fewer in-person days last year" than VA (CA was 50/50)https://t.co/YOuAaljFnK
— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) November 9, 2021
In other words, they’re embracing the Florida model. A little late, but that’s exactly what they’re doing:
"What we’ve done to children has been criminal, disconnecting them from their peers and disrupting their education even though they’ve always been at low risk."
– @FLSurgeonGen Joe Ladapohttps://t.co/wxwT2wCwcz— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) November 9, 2021
Anyway, welcome to the party, Michelle, but this was awful a year ago:
“At some schools, students have been forbidden to talk during lunch. At my own kids’ school, students must be masked even during outdoor recess.” https://t.co/zl2suQIH3R
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) November 9, 2021
Even Randi Weingarten is ready to cave on masks, which is good seeing she crapped on Puerto Rico’s indoor mask mandate over the weekend:
Randi Weingarten is ready to talk about ending school masking https://t.co/XE5maOF38L pic.twitter.com/A4sJ2LP2Xw
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) November 9, 2021
Again, she’s way late to all of this:
She’s ready to talk about ending *outdoor* masking, only a year after everyone else realized how unnecessary it was. https://t.co/5afeVIts3S
— Jeremy Senderowicz (@jsende) November 9, 2021
But it’s not just electoral victories Dems are concerned with. Public schools are also losing money thanks to parents pulling students out of the system:
In Fairfax County, public school enrollment is down by more than 10K students since before the pandemic, a 5.5% decrease. Enrollment in NYC declined by 4.5%, about 50K students. In CA enrollment decreased by 3%, or 160K students, the largest drop in 20 yrs https://t.co/SK57IRsDFD
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) November 9, 2021
And they’re worried that school-choice bills will become more popular around the country:
“In an environment like this, Republican proposals to subsidize private school tuition are likely to be received gratefully by many parents.” https://t.co/WQ9L4U5TyX
— Ryan Chittum (@ryanchittum) November 9, 2021
Yes, we’ll take it:
Back to @michelleinbklyn’s piece:
It’s depressing that it may take electoral disaster to get schools reopened, as opposed to “let’s prioritize normalcy for kids like Europe did.”
But parents are desperate, and we’ll take it.
— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) November 9, 2021
But it never should’ve gotten to this point.
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