Science and data. If you follow executive orders, gubernatorial press conferences, or school district board meetings, you hear those 3 words used constantly.
Decisions about school openings and closings, they promise, will be based on the science and the data and with the expert guidance of physicians.
So what happens when the science, the data, and the doctors say “schools should be open”?
Michigan politicians and school districts bullied by local unions close them anyway.
That’s the scene that’s played out in Michigan, where the Governor and decision-makers have chosen again (and repeatedly) to ignore the expert guidance of scientists and doctors, and opted to hurt Michigan’s kids.
The latest expert guidance comes from none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, who just days ago told policymakers that schools are safe and they should be open for class.
“If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected,” Fauci said.
Dr. Fauci’s recommendation is hardly the first. The CDC, the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and study after study have come to the same conclusion. Schools, opened safely, benefit our kids – they don’t threaten them.
Michigan’s ongoing, unscientific school closures? They’re devastating Michigan’s kids.
Beth DeShone
Executive Director, Great Lakes Education Project
Michigan’s Big Show: Beth DeShone talks School Safety with Michael Patrick Shiels
“We know that schools can be open safely. We’ve seen it all over this state and country. Schools are able to provide a safe and controlled environment for kids to learn.”
GLEP: Detroit Mother, Student Advocate Named GLEP’s Inaugural Education Champion of the Month
“Miss Bradley is making a real difference for kids across Detroit,” said GLEP Executive Director Beth DeShone. “Engaged Detroit is the kind of dynamic solution that parents are clamoring for as they adjust to schooling during a global pandemic. Students will succeed because of Bernita Bradley. We’re honored to name her GLEP’s first-ever Education Champion award winner.”
According to a recent study by the Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, “the decision on whether to offer at least some level of in-person learning had little relationship to the COVID-19 data in the region,” but was instead tied to partisan politics. IPPSR found that parts of the state that strongly support the Governor’s political party are much less likely to offer in-person learning.
The result has been a cataclysmic loss of learning for Michigan students.
The Whitmer administration’s unscientific approach to school closures has already led to what researchers at Stanford University have identified as hundreds of days worth of lost learning.
Not missed learning. Lost learning. The kind of learning loss that education experts say will take years to recover. Many of our children might not recover at all.
Every one of those students matters. Science matters. Data matters. That’s why it’s time to safely open Michigan’s schools.
