On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attempted to explain how the Trump Administration’s orders to reopen schools in the fall can be achieved when they overtly contradict the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
Host Dana Bash played a clip of Fairfax (VA) County School Board Superintendent Dr. Scott Brabrand explaining that to meet CDC social distancing guidelines, the district would have to quintuple the amount of classroom space it has now, a logistical impossibility.
As school districts struggle to combine the Trump Administration's push for in-person learning with CDC guidelines, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says "the CDC guidelines are just that, meant to be flexible and meant to be applied as appropriate for the situation" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/4qVh5KZudU
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) July 12, 2020
To defend the order, DeVos attempted to contrast Fairfax with the Miami-Dade (FL) school continuity of education plan, which specifically uses multiple platforms, including online and remote education, not solely in-person education.
“But the Fairfax County plan…,” DeVos stutteringly began, “….either four days a week online and, and, and y’know the fifth day, not… or two days a week in-person, these are not valid options and choices for families, and it’s not full time instruction.”
Bash countered, “What you are saying is, you want kids back in school. What he is saying, is because they have almost 200,000 in their school district, they would have to build the size of five Pentagons in order to accommodate what you are asking for.”
What asked what she would recommend, DeVos responded, “My recommendation is that he take up the offer to meet with my team and some of the folks from the CDC and the [coronavirus] task force to talk about ways that they can look at this, ah, freshly and, and differently on behalf of the students they’re serving.”
DeVos offered no solid solution to bending the laws of physics to accommodate 200,000 students in limited space, or for the rapid construction of teaching space equivalent to five Pentagons.
When asked by Bash if the district should follow the CDC guidelines, DeVos states, “The CDC guidelines are just that: meant to be flexible and applied as appropriate for the situation. … I think we’re on the same page. We want kids to get back to school. We want them to be learning full time. Full time. Not just a part time, not just a, a, an episodic situation, but kids have got to be learning full time and have the expectation that the next school year is going to give them a school year’s worth of learning because so many of them fell behind.”
Note that DeVos did not mention that any of these proposals by DeVos or Trump to open schools has any concern about the safety of the children, the teachers, the staff or their family during the pandemic.