The Daily Signal - What's the Impact on Families and Kids If Schools Stay Closed?

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

School districts are “losing contact with thousands of students, from Philadelphia to Houston to Los Angeles,” according to news reports. What is going on here?  Jonathan Butcher, senior policy analyst for the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, joins The "Daily Signal News" podcast to discuss the impact on families and children when schools remain closed during COVID-19. We also cover these stories: By a vote of 12-0, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. In an interview with "60 Minutes," President Trump says he hopes the Supreme Court will “end” the Affordable Care Act. and that he will announce his health care plan after it rules. Fully 70% of Americans support legal unions for gay and lesbian couples, according to a new survey from Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you. See your local Nissan dealer or nison.ca for details. Conditions apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, October 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Dahl-Judis. What is the impact on kids and families across the country if schools stay closed? How have schools continuing to stay closed impacted kids in particular?

Jonathan Butcher's Senior Policy Analyst for the Center for Education Policy Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at the Heritage Foundation, joins me today on the podcast to discuss. And don't forget. You're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now, onto our top news. On Thursday, Judge Amy Coney-Barratt was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee 12 to zero.

Not a single Democrat showed up to vote. The Senate Judiciary Committee does require that two Democrat senators be present to vote, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that the minority party would not determine the outcome of the vote. On Thursday, Graham said via the Hill, as you know, our Democratic colleagues informed the committee last night that they will not participate in the hearing. That was their choice. It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee. We're not going to allow them to take over the committee.

The Senate floor vote on Barrett's confirmation is expected on Monday. In an interview with 60 minutes, President Trump said he hopes the Supreme Court will end the Affordable Care Act. The president added that he will announce. his health care plan after the Supreme Court ruling in November. It is developed. It is fully developed. It is going to be announced very soon when we see what happens with Obamacare, which is not good, the president said. And he added, it will be much less expensive than Obamacare, which is a disaster, and it will take care of people with preexisting conditions. The president did not provide the details of his health care plan, but said, we will come up with a plan. A new survey released

Monday from the Public Religion Research Institute with the Brookings Institution found that 70% of Americans support gay and lesbian legal unions. According to the survey, 80% of Democrats and 76% of independence, as well as half of Republicans, support same-sex marriage. Santa Claus will not be at Macy's New York store this Christmas season for the first time in 160 years because of COVID-19. The store announced Thursday that it could not safely practice social distancing with Santa Claus and the quarter million people who normally come to visit Santa at the New York location. Instead, Macy's is offering a virtual experience for children and families to meet Santa, take a photo with him, play games, and have a virtual tour of Santa's workshop. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Jonathan Butcher on why

schools are staying closed, how it's impacting students, and what can be done about it. America is at a crossroads. Each day we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation, while night after night our city streets are set ablaze by riots and rage. That's why the Heritage Foundation has developed a plan to help take our country back. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of heritage recommended action items delivered to you each week. Make an impact in your community and in our country. sign up for the citizens guide at heritage.org slash 2020

and join in the fight for America today. We're joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Jonathan Butcher. He's the senior policy analyst for the Center for Education Policy Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at the Heritage Foundation. Jonathan, it's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Great to be here. Thank you. Well, you just had a piece come out on the Daily Signal looking at the impact on families if schools stay closed. Can you tell us a little bit about your? your piece. Sure. So we are now about the end of what would normally be the first academic

quarter for the 2020-21 school year. And around the country, we still have many large districts, especially only offering online instruction. Schools are not having students come back in person, especially in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, even in states like Maryland, where the governor has said that schools can plan to reopen, some of the large cities, schools in large cities like Baltimore are not open for in-person learning yet. So this has really, it's made this first quarter feel like the longest school year ever so far. Well, how have schools continuing to stay close as they are impacted kids in particular? So we've seen a couple of things. I mean, I think first we've had parents protesting, demonstrating in places like San Diego, Baltimore,

many places in between to call for schools to allow students back in person or at least give them the option to return in person. And you can imagine why, right? I mean, parents are looking not only for their children to be successful and finding that these online platforms just are not helping students get on top of whatever the content, you know, schools are trying to cover, but also because parents need to get back to work. They're trying to set themselves up for a sense of normalcy again, for. or their families. So you have on the one side, parents in these areas where schools are closed, they are calling for at least the option to get back in person. And then secondly, we are seeing evidence now increasingly come in, both in the U.S. and around the world, really, that schools

do not appear to be super spreaders of the virus. What we've got so far, especially, and most interestingly, coming from Brown University, which has this database of more than 1,000 schools, almost 1,300 schools, and they're looking at the case rates in the schools that have become a part of their project. And we have confirmed case numbers of about 0.14% of 0.14% of students in schools in that database. Among the teachers, we're talking about 0.4%. So it's not affecting students, not affecting the teachers, based on the best evidence that we have. And that's important. It's important for families and for school leaders to know. Well, you basically answered my next question, Jonathan.

But what would you say do parents who are concerned that reopening schools could mean that kids get sick or spread COVID through communities? Well, like Heritage has been saying since the end of the last semester, since last spring, it really should be up. to local schools to make decisions in consultation with parents as they talk to local health professionals about what is best for their community. But the whole premise behind that is that school leaders would be thinking of what is best for their community and would be taking into consideration what the best evidence is. And again and again, we have evidence coming in showing that schools are not becoming a dangerous place for students. I was talking about that Brown University dashboard just a few minutes ago, when you sort that tool using private schools

that are open in person, we also find extremely low confirmed case rates around the numbers that I was mentioning before. We're talking 0.2% in that neighborhood. So, you know, even schools that are open, the evidence that's coming in shows that, you know, they are for now anyway, places that parents do not need to be fearful about sending their children. And I think that's key, because this is where teachers unions are beginning to gain a foothold. I think they're capitalizing on this idea that parents have some anxiety and school leaders may also have some fear about what may or may not happen. And so they are making demands about what schools may need to do. Most recently, Fairfax County called on the school to stay closed, the district schools to stay

closed until August of next year, August of 2021. So they're trying to capitalize on this fear, and that's unfortunate. We don't need fear right now. We need to be looking at the facts that we have and understanding that if students are not doing well with this online platform, they need to have the option to be back in person. Well, you raise how parents have led protests in favor of reopening schools across the country. Why are schools, and I mean, even some politicians still essentially campaigning against reopening schools? It's hard to say. I mean, I think that again, when in July, when the American Federation for Teachers, one of the nation's largest teachers unions, released a statement saying that they would support local chapters or that they wouldn't

oppose local chapters holding strikes or walkouts when, if schools tried to reopen, that led pretty quickly to what became in August a day of resistance where groups of teacher union chapters around the U.S., listed demands and conducted walkouts and protests, even those schools were open yet. And these demands didn't have anything to do, not all of them, had to do with reopening schools. I mean, some of the things they were talking about were defunding police and, you know, paying off delinquent mortgages and rent payments and things like that. So this issue of political opportunism sort of creeps in. And I think as, you know, as we were saying before, they're capitalizing on the uncertainty and fear that is happening in many of these communities.

And that's not what families and students need right now. What they need is for school leaders to be telling them that they're looking at the latest evidence and they're going to be making decisions about what is best for students. And look, as I was writing in the Daily Signal in this piece, thousands of students were lost by school districts when they went online in the spring. And right now we do not have good evidence that they have been, found or logged back on again. And that's, you know, that's really troubling. I mean, when you have students, especially in urban areas, especially in high poverty areas, who are not getting any

sort of instruction at all, you know, that's for everyone, taxpayers, policymakers, parents and families, as well as educators. That should be a big concern. Well, Jonathan, in your research, have you heard any personal stories or even just scenarios of what is happening to students in particular as they continue to basically be in a lot of ways just locked out of the classroom. Well, I have some good news. I mean, I think what we're happy to report are some of the positive things that we've seen. I've talked to families in North Carolina who have used their education savings account to pay for the continuation of the education therapies and even private school tuition that they had before the pandemic set in. With these education savings accounts, they're

available in five states, North Carolina being one, Arizona, Florida, some of the others. Parents get a portion of their child's funds from the state funding formula, and they can buy educational products and services, including education therapies and private school tuition. They can use their accounts to pay for those. And with that flexible service, parents have been able to, you know, not perfectly, but in a large degree, continue the child's progress through both school and with the different therapies that they may need. So that's encouraging. I've talked to families that have formed independent learning pods where they've gathered with families in their neighborhood or talked with parents they know and brought their children together each day during the school

day to continue instruction and decide on what the content may be, either through what the district is offering or on their own. And that's exciting. I mean, I think that's a sign of a civil society response to a problem that didn't require government to act. So that should be hopeful for all of us, right? Parents are going to take matters in their own hands if they need to. They know what's best for their children and they're acting accordingly. Well, you point out in your piece that federal officials are not going to withhold spending from schools that remain closed to in-person learning. What would you say is the reasoning behind this? Well, I don't think they'll have to in order for schools to feel the effects of staying closed for a long period of time. Based on what we know from the

reports of enrollment data in this first quarter or the beginning of this new school year, we're finding large districts in particular, places like Nashville, Washington, D.C., down in Florida, Orange County, as well as Los Angeles, we have pretty noticeable numbers of students. We're talking, you know, in the thousands of students who are not enrolling and they're reporting decreases in student enrollment, especially in the younger grades, especially in kindergarten and elementary school. So that is going to be the sign for school officials as they, you know, think about going back and reopening. If they reopen and the students don't come back, I think that will, you know, that message needs to be sent to these school officials that the longer they stay close.

the more students either will not be able to be found or parents are just going to make decisions to take their children out and find a quality option for them. You also mentioned how school leaders have ignored medical evidence and parent and student needs for months. What would you say Jonathan can be done to turn this around? Well, for the schools that do decide to stay online with virtual instruction, it is well past time for them to look at best practices from existing virtual schools. There are systems that have done this very well for a number of years like K-12 Inc. Connections Academy, just to name a few. There are school districts that have partnered with programs like Khan Academy to deliver content online, and they figured out how to do this in a way that does engage students, and that does help them. And so I think as districts have tried to do this a bit on the fly, you know, now we're several months into this, right? It is very reasonable to expect that they'd be.

looking for better ways to have connections with students and finding some of these best practices, such as regular interaction between students and their teacher and not just delivering assignments online, for one example. So that would be a start, right? Let's find some best practices. For two, I think that schools do need to be looking at the evidence that we have coming in from other countries, as well as in the U.S., showing that if you follow some very basic protocols about hand washing, you know, keeping appropriate distance between students, you know, all of these different things about masks in certain situations, you know, all of the basic things that we've now been talking about for months, we can mitigate at least, if not suppress, widespread outbreaks.

And so I think that providing that option is essential right now. It's essential that schools at least give families the option. And the third thing I would just add, as a bonus, is that some states have actually created scholarship options for students. Oklahoma, New Hampshire, in particular, were able to create new private school opportunities for students in certain situations. And that is what we should be seeing from state leaders. We need state officials now to be looking at ways to give families access to schools that are open. Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and breaking this down. We do appreciate having you with us.

Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by K.

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