My new Bloomberg Opinion column is about how the schools’ response to COVID strengthens the case for educational choice. An excerpt:
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is pretending that the unions are not posing an obstacle. The problem, he says, is that schools need $130 billion extra to implement safety measures.
It’s an excuse. Using CDC estimates of the cost of safety measures, Dan Lips of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a conservative group, calculates that the national cost should be less than $23 billion. The Cares Act last spring created a $16 billion fund for Covid relief for schools. But the schools have not been rushing to use the money. As of Nov. 30, New York had, for example, spent less than a third of what Congress sent it. In December, Congress sent public schools another $54 billion anyway. Another $130 billion won’t get schools reopened if the unions don’t want it.