Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor, failed Presidential candidate, and rich guy, took to the pages of the Washington Post to argue that Joe Biden should keep schools open this summer.
Bloomberg says that we are facing "the greatest challenge to public education" since schools defied Brown v. Board of Education. He says that "the evidence that remote learning has been disastrous for children, especially those from low-income families, could not be clearer." Well, yes, it could. There aren't many teachers, students or parents saying, "This remote stuff is great--we should do it all the time." But we don't have much actual evidence about how disastrous any of this has or has not been (and no, the "research" about Learning Loss doesn't fill that bill). Bloomberg also seems to be nodding at Raj Chetty's highly debatable work when he declares that the "harmful effects" will be "worsening racial income and wealth gaps" for generations.
Bloomberg says to follow the science, which "strongly supports reopening schools," which is not that strong an endorsement, but that's beside the point anyway, because Bloomberg here sorts himself with the folks who always stop that sentence before they get to the subordinate "if" clause-- "science strongly supports reopening schools IF PROPER MITIGATION STEPS ARE TAKE." Sorry. I hate to shout, but some folks just keep skipping that part, and unfortunately, some of those folks are in charge of school districts.
If that omission isn't enough to clarifying where Bloomberg is coming from, we can also take his note that it's good that Biden prioritized vaccinations for teachers because it "will help persuade more of them to return to the classroom." The vaccination won't provide protection for them--just leverage CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Dear Mike Bloomberg: No