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K-12 Dive
Biden's gambit: Will schools be ready to reopen in 100 days?
Naaz Modan
Jan. 19, 2021
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to bring significant changes for
K-12 schools, but perhaps none is more awaited by school leaders than a
coronavirus mitigation and school reopening strategy.
"The conversations we've had with [Education Secretary] nominee
[Manuel] Cordona already indicate that they are focused on and that
their top priority is COVID response," said Noelle Ellerson Ng,
associate executive director for advocacy and governance at AASA, The
School Superintendents Association. "And in the frame of COVID response
specific to schools, the priority is safely opening schools to the
extent possible."
That extent is still unclear.
In early December, Biden announced his key priorities for his first 100
days in office, which include reopening a majority of schools. This
weekend, Biden's transition team put out this statement: "On January
21, the president-elect will sign a number of executive actions to move
aggressively to change the course of the COVID-19 crisis and safely
re-open schools and businesses, including by taking action to mitigate
spread through expanding testing, protecting workers, and establishing
clear public health standards."
"We can do it, if we give school districts, communities, and states the
clear guidance they need, as well as the resources they will need that
they cannot afford right now because of the economic crisis we are in,"
Biden said during a speech in his home state of Delaware. "That means
more testing and transportation, additional cleaning and sanitizing
services, protective equipment, and ventilation systems in the schools."
The promise seems too ambitious to some, but education and policy experts say it's not impossible to fulfill.
When Biden first made the promise to reopen schools, a majority were
open to some extent, according to Robin Lake, an education researcher
and director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research
and policy analysis organization that is tracking district openings.
"It'll look like an accomplishment, but it's actually where we are
already" was Lake's first thought.
"I think that makes the challenge less insurmountable than it might
seem," said Emily Oster, an economist and professor at Brown University.
However, districts are trending toward shutting down again. Seeing the
turn in COVID-19 numbers, Lake thinks Biden's promise is less feasible
than she first thought.
What Biden needs to do
However, 100% of schools open within 100 days is not what Biden is
promising, said Ellerson Ng. Rather, she said, the president-elect
needs to show that the data allows schools "to likely be more open than
they currently are."
While a timeline for when all schools will successfully reopen is
unclear, there are a few factors that are key, experts said. They
include:
Successful vaccination rollouts with educators prioritized.
Access to and guidance for COVID-19 testing.
Another stimulus package including enough funding for schools, which is planned.
Biden can step in to set a universal standard guiding district leaders
through decisions about when to open and when to close. "Right now,
states are using different metrics for that decision," Lake said.
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