CALmatters Commentary: Teacher unions make unlikely foe for Newsom
By Bruce Fuller, Special to CALmatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom best keep his back to the wall as proliferating critics unsheathe their knives. Parents litigating to unlock classrooms, die-hard Trumpians stirring a recall campaign.
But an unlikely foe draws the sharpest dagger: self-assured leaders of California’s teacher unions.
Newsom has gently cajoled educators for months to carefully resume in-person schooling, aiming to relieve exhausted, increasingly jobless, parents. The governor’s most recent bid promises $2 billion to local educators who submit blueprints for reopening classrooms, ensuring steady covid testing and protective gear for kids and teachers alike.
Collin Binkley and Mike Stobbe
Amid mounting tensions about reopening schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to release long-awaited guidance Friday on what measures are needed to get children back into the classroom during the pandemic.
President Joe Biden requested updated the guidance when he took office, responding to complaints that the CDC’s school guidelines under the Trump administration were unclear and inconsistent. The White House said Thursday that the new guidance would help drive a national strategy to get students back to classrooms.
Biden faces increasing pressure to deliver on his promise to get the majority of schools back to in-person teaching by the end of his first 100 days in office. The White House said this week that schools would be considered opened as long as they teach in-person at least one day a week.
The CDC on Friday provided a roadmap for reopening schools in the middle of a pandemic, emphasizing mask wearing and social distancing and saying vaccination of teachers is important but not a prerequisite for reopening.
The president has been caught between competing interests as he works to get students in the classroom without spurning the powerful teachers unions that helped get him elected.
After months of school shutdowns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it’s safe for children to attend school with some precautions.
To provide a safe in-person classroom environment, federal health officials have advised that students wear masks and social distance. However, they also cautioned against playing indoor sports.
“The latest data suggest school settings do not result in rapid spread of COVID-19 when mitigation measures including wearing masks, socially distancing, cohorting students, and good hand hygiene are followed,” a CDC official told The Christian Post.
Empirical studies show that keeping children and adolescents less physically active and disrupting their routine negatively impacts their mental health. Most mental health disorders begin in childhood.
29 Jan 2021
U.S. schools operating in-person have experienced low transmission of the Chinese coronavirus, particularly when mitigation strategies such as masking and social distancing are in place, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky stressed on Friday, citing new findings by the health agency.
Under President Joe Biden, the CDC has expressed support for schools to safely reopen with appropriate mitigation efforts in place such as masking and social distancing, consistent with the Trump administration’s position.
Armed with CDC data that shows low transmissibility among students, Dr. Walensky stressed during a press briefing Friday, “CDC continues to recommend that K-12 schools be the last setting to close after all other mitigation measures have been employed and the first to reopen when they can do so safely,” adding:
Halfpoint / iStock
Only 3.7% of COVID-19 cases at 17 in-person K-12 schools in Wood County, Wisconsin, were tied to in-school transmission, and incidence was 37% lower than that in the surround community, according to a study published yesterday in the
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (
MMWR)
In a commentary in
JAMA on the topic, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) give recommendations for safe reopening in US schools.
In-school transmission uncommon
The study, led by a physician from Aspirus Doctors Clinic in Wisconsin Rapids, used school and public health records to identify 191 COVID-19 cases in 4,876 students and 654 staff across five rural school districts.