What could possibly be worse than having a depraved incompetent in charge of a pandemic? Nothing. But second place is reserved for Betsy DeVos, who’s pushing to put our schoolkids on the front lines without even the foggiest notion of how to do it safely.
Which is par for the course. She’s the perfect Education secretary for this death-cult regime that couldn’t find its own ass even with a map of the human anatomy.
As evidenced yesterday on the morning talk shows, Betsy DeVos – a rich Michigan Republican donor who has devoted her life to undercutting public education – dearly wants all kids back in public school full time, but without the federal billions needed to ensure that kids, teachers, and staffers are safe from the virus. She says the “data” shows that kids aren’t in danger and that they won’t transmit the virus to grownups, but in truth the “data” thus far is severely limited. She does concede that, yeah, there could be “flare ups” and “hot spots” when schools fully reopen, but she says it would be up to the schools how to deal with that.
But hey, we better reopen all the schools next month, because if we don’t, it might make Donald Trump look bad. She didn’t say that, but we all know that’s the gist.
DeVos’ treacherous track record has long been documented. But perhaps Steve Schmidt, the former Republican campaign strategist, says it best: “DeVos is a fool. She is cosmically incompetent. Her interviews are a disaster. Her only ‘qualification’ is inherited wealth. She is tone deaf, entitled and profoundly out of touch. She has little connection to the real world and she thinks America’s kids are expendable.”
Granted, she’s only carrying water for duh leader who once said the number of virus cases would soon be “close to zero,” duh same leader who touted a miracle cure: “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” But that doesn’t absolve her.
On CNN yesterday, for instance, she said: “Kids have to get back to school…There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them.” You could drive a Hummer through the holes in that reckless remark.
For starters, we still don’t know how much we don’t know. Most of the “data” thus far has been based on limited research and has not been peer-reviewed. Also, kids have been home since the spring – and that’s the main reason why the “data” is insufficient.
John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, tells ABC News: “We haven’t been able to really watch kids in their natural habitat. Even if they are less capable of getting or transmitting the virus, you are countering that (in schools) with closer proximity and contacts over longer periods of time. We don’t have evidence of them in school settings…There aren’t a lot of kids who have had a normal day in the past four months.”
But we do have this new evidence: Health officials in one Virginia county say that 150 teens between the ages of 16 and 18 tested positive for the virus last week — most of them after visiting Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Last Monday, one Missouri county announced that 82 children, counselors and staff tested positive at a local summer camp. And Texas health authorities say that 1300 kids and employees have tested positive in a child care center.
Yesterday, DeVos was asked about those Missouri and Texas outbreaks. In response, she said that YMCAs have been doing a great job in their child care facilities “and that there has not been a high incidence of viral spread in those situations…So it really is a matter of paying attention to good hygiene.” Uh, OK.
Yes, she acknowledged, there could be “little flareups and hot spots” when schools fully reopen, but those “can be dealt with on a school-by-school, case-by-case basis,” all of which leaves “ample opportunity to have kids in school.”
I get weary just trying to unpack that beaut. Are overwhelmed local school administrators (lacking public health degrees) supposed to determine what constitutes a flareup or a hot spot? Should they shut down when one kid tests positive – or do they wait for five or 10? What parent, fearing asymptomatic transmission, would keep a kid in school if there’s even one case? How many kids live in the same household with high-risk grandparents? And what about the sizeable number of staffers and teachers who are at high risk?
Let’s talk about those teachers. A new Kaiser Family Foundation study says that 25 percent nationwide are at risk of serious illness from the virus, because of their age or preexisting health woes. What if they don’t feel comfortable coming back to school – or sticking around if even one kid tests positive?
DeVos had an answer for that (not really): “That’s something for them to work out with their local district. The rule needs to be, schools need to get open.”
All told, this is classic Trump behavior. He and his minions flex muscle with a federal demand that all schools reopen, combined with threats to withhold federal money if they refuse. But they punt on any federal plan to help. They throw up their hands and leave all implementation to the locals. Congress did approve $13 billion for schools during the pandemic, but the Trump regime has yet to disburse most of it. The House Democrats, recognizing the scope of this emergency, voted recently to spend another $60 billion to ensure safe schools, but naturally the Trump’s Republican Senate is sitting on it.
DeVos tried one more threat yesterday: “Where schools don’t follow through (on reopening), parents should have the opportunity and the option to find a school that is going to open.” Ah there it was, her enduring agenda: Support for private schools.
If it’s any consolation, the only upside to this particular disaster is that Trump is cratering with suburban voters, particularly college-educated women, precisely because he has compounded his deadly botching of the pandemic with his reckless demand for the reopening of schools. If that’s truly his re-election strategy, we can risk dreaming a wee bit more about consigning Trump and DeVos to the dumpster – and ushering in a new team that respects science and public ed.