Schools

Tuesday

Matt Mayer

Reopen schools now

My old boss Michael Chertoff, former secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, went on Face the Nation this past weekend where he opined that K-12 schools should not reopen until there is a vaccine for the Wuhan virus. Now, I have enormous respect for Sec. Chertoff. I believe he is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. But his opinions on this topic should carry no more weight than mine or yours. The reality is that it is time for the evidence and common sense to determine what states do in the fall in terms of reopening our public schools. Virtually all of the evidence on the Wuhan virus indicates it has little impact on the five-year-old to 18-year-old school age population. Most states have had few, if any, deaths of school-aged citizens.

schools

Monday

Satya Marar

Want to save public schools? Embrace school choice

Debate over school choice has got ugly. A public school district administrator in Kentucky recently suggested he’d delay students’ graduations if the state legislature passes school choice legislation that would give tax credits to private donors who support voucher programs for kids to attend schools of their choice. The proposed program is similar to one in Florida, and the federal government has reportedly pledged up to $70 million in support to the Bluegrass State if it passes the bill.At the heart of the outraged responses to such programs is the assumption that supporting public school students who want to attend private schools will undermine public education and hurt the kids left behind by transferring funds into private hands.

schools

Friday

Christian Barnard

Bloomberg’s education policies deserve much more scrutiny

Mayor Mike Bloomberg didn’t fare so well in his debut appearance in Wednesday night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas. Every other candidate was intent on exposing various sordid parts of his history, including his mistreatment of women and his former comments on banning the redlining that caused the 2008 financial crisis. But I was surprised that other parts of his record didn’t receive any attention—particularly his comments on K-12 education. After all, Bloomberg once said that if he had things his way, he’d 'cut the number of teachers in half', 'double [their] compensation' and 'weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers'.

education

Thursday

Rachel Tripp

Espinoza v. Montana is about families, not religion

These days, 'school choice' has become such a polarizing term that many bristle at the mere mention of it. Up to this point, discussions have centered on public charters vs. traditional public schools, yet talk about religious schools has been largely left to the periphery. But that will soon change, once we hear the outcome of a potentially landmark education case that’s currently before the Supreme Court. And if tradition holds, bitter political arguments over the outcome are certain to overlook the most important stakeholders — the children and their parents.The case, Espinoza v.

espinoza

Thursday

Michael Morpurgo

In my illness and old age, children give me hope

By 74 it is easy to feel that you have seen it all, done it all, that nothing much surprises you any more. Striving gives way to coping. Drop a pencil and it rolls under the sofa. What you have to do is think about the best way to find it and pick it up. Problem. Do you get down on your knees and reach in under, which of course means you will have to get up again, or do you simply push the sofa away? Such problems don’t really bother you. You cope with it. You don’t reflect on growing decrepitude. It has been so slow coming, you have hardly noticed. Push the sofa away. Bend slowly, pick it up. Done. Straighten up. No one was watching. That’s good. Even an unwelcome medical diagnosis does not surprise you. You cope because you have to.