Cavalry to the Rescue

Donald Trump has called for the reopening of schools this fall.   I happen to agree with him.  This is congruent with the assessment and conclusions of clinical psychologists, pediatricians and parents who need to return to work.  Nevertheless, there are caveats.  

The first is that the president cannot have it both ways.  By that, I mean, if he has already abrogated all responsibility to the governors to manage the pandemic, he has no expectation of authority to order anybody back to school. He has zero standing to demand a student, classroom teacher, administrator, custodian, aide or lunchroom lady return.  This is a matter that is rightfully left to the states and better yet to individual communities where governance of public schools is left to local boards of education.          

The second caveat is that as a consequence of the president's lazy and haphazard lack of leadership the pandemic is surging. Again. Thusly, reopening schools safely is going to be costly. Very, very costly.  And with Wisconsin school districts already constrained by state curriculum and budget mandates – they are going to be clobbered by these added costs.  

The federal cavalry should be thundering to the rescue.       

Back in March, federal aid passed into law provided for $13.5 billion to K-12 education - less than one percent of the total stimulus.  Seems to me that Washington needs to step-up and do more as the states certainly don’t have the means.  Their budgets have been bled-dry by the economic impact of coronavirus and the Trump recession.
        

Consider this – if the feds can provide bailout funding to cover the payrolls of restaurants, bars and law firms - or funding to keep banks, cruise lines, movie theaters and airlines afloat - they should add school districts to the list.  

It is a known truth that a critical key to a return to normalcy is getting our school-age children back in school.

Safely.

If I had the ear of the president as an advisor I'd encourage him to step-it-up and call for a cavalry charge - seems like a good strategy for reelection after-all. 

Of course nobody listens to me.......