Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Sunday broke with President Donald Trump’s criticism of federal guidelines for reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, calling the recommendations the president described as tough, expensive and impractical “common sense.”
DeVos also emphasized that the CDC’s recommendations are merely guidance, as she insisted that children need to return to school this fall, despite surging coronavirus infections throughout swaths of the country that have contributed to new nationwide daily infection records. And she said that returning children to school will not endanger them.
“All of the guidelines are meant to be helpful, to help local education leaders decide and work on how they are going to accomplish what they need to do, and that is getting kids back in school based on their situation and their realities,” the secretary said on “Fox News Sunday,” acknowledging that as outbreaks continue to flare up, “there's not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to everything.”
“But the key is, there has to be a posture of doing something, of action, of getting things going, putting a plan together for your specific school, for your specific district or for your classroom that ensures that kids are going to start learning again this fall,” she said.
The administration has upped its pressure campaign on education significantly in recent weeks, with officials arguing that keeping children out of school for extended periods can be more detrimental than potential exposure to the virus and pointing to countries who have gotten the virus under control and successfully resumed in-person schooling.
Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security said it would kick out foreigners who are in the U.S. on student visas if their college does not plan to resume at least some in-person classes.
The Trump administration’s insistence on reopening schools in spite of cases continuing to climb — and its threat to withhold federal funding from schools that don’t resume in-person instruction — has met fierce pushback, from teachers unions and superintendents to pediatricians and even GOP-leaning groups.
But DeVos asserted Sunday: “There's nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous."
“We know that children contract and have the virus at far lower incidence than any other part of the population,” she continued, though coronavirus testing rates among children are lower. Children are thought to be less likely to show symptoms of the virus even as they remain capabale of spreading it to others, but others may still get seriously ill and even die.
DeVos also doubled down on the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal funding from schools that refuse to reopen, first leveled by Trump in a tweet last week.
The secretary wouldn’t say how the administration would accomplish such a move, which would likely need congressional approval, but argued that “investment in education is a promise to students and their families.”
“If schools aren't going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn't get the funds. And give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise,” she contended.