Health-care policy expert Avik Roy has a must-read thread up on the “compelling” case to reopen both K-12 schools and colleges this fall.
THREAD ==>
Hot off the @FREOPP presses: our major new paper on reopening America’s schools & colleges during #COVID19. Co-authored by @LanheeChen, @PrestonCooper93, @BobKocher, @DanLips, & me: https://t.co/SpqcvZjmKk
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
The case for reopening schools is compelling. We know that for children, the risk of dying of #COVID19 is lower than that of dying of influenza in normal years. And we have a lot of European experience at this point that schools can be reopened without damaging public health. pic.twitter.com/Ua8GM9teA7
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
That doesn't mean we go back to pre-pandemic normalcy. We'll have to protect teachers and staff from infecting each other, just as in any other workplace, and provide virtual and microschool opportunities to students who can't attend traditional schools. https://t.co/nUzIiUu8YC pic.twitter.com/dzEia2cgfr
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
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One new opportunity that @DanLips has highlighted is to fund Education Savings Accounts, that thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision in Espinoza v. Montana, have a lot more utility in helping parents supplement their children's educational options. https://t.co/gXJsvH1gUh
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
As to colleges: @PrestonCooper93, our postsecondary ed scholar, has emphasized, you can't have a one-size-fits-all approach, because private and public colleges and community colleges & for-profit colleges are all different, especially in terms of how their students are housed. pic.twitter.com/po0bYzJqU0
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
It's going to work best in the fall, we @FREOPP believe, to keep off-campus college students studying virtually, and on-campus students remaining on-campus, in order to limit community spread. The recent experience with spread linked to 20somethings in bars was on our minds here.
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
We need to understand concepts like relative risks and tradeoffs. School closures have affected 80 million children and young adults, not to mention their parents. And yet, Americans under 25 represent 0.15% of #COVID19 deaths. https://t.co/nUzIiUu8YC pic.twitter.com/LYC36SuQLY
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
Some people in Congress are considering sending additional funding to schools to deal with #COVID19. In targeted cases, this may be warranted. But it's worth noting, as @DanLips does in our paper, that only $83 *million* of the $17 billion of CARES Act ed funding has been spent. pic.twitter.com/HdMN9vaepQ
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
There's lots more in the @FREOPP paper. Let us know what you think. Thanks again to @BobKocher, @LanheeChen, @DanLips, and @PrestonCooper93 for producing this comprehensive and detailed proposal. https://t.co/nUzIiUu8YC
— Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
Now, if we could just get policymakers on both sides of the aisle to listen. . .
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