8/3/20
Donald Trump tweets about reopening schools sounds like a man desperate to get his minor offspring out of the house and into a classroom. Alas for Donald, young Barron’s school — St. Andrew’s Episcopal, which charges $42,190 for a year of middle school — remains closed for the fall. Barron will have to learn at home, shut up in the White House while his father rages on Twitter. Why is Trump so eager for children to go back to school? The leading theory is that he thinks a return to normal will boost his approval ratings, which have begun to flag. There’s a certain base logic to his obsession with reopening school: Parents can’t get back to work if they’re saddled with child-care duties, and a lingering recession won’t help his chances of reelection. But Trump’s tweets rarely make good policy. Opening schools on a pre-pandemic schedule could still backfire in ways that are damaging for Trump and dangerous, if not fatal, for others. While the president strives to pretend that COVID-19 is going away, claiming that recent outbreaks are merely the result of higher testing rates, evidence does not exactly support his point of view.
But opening school for any level of in-person instruction gives adults a chance to spread the virus to each other, and to their students. Trump might not believe that’s a real risk, or is at least pretending he doesn’t think so, in order to bolster his shuddering presidency, but he can’t control COVID-19’s biology. The virus is highly contagious, and a risky reopening strategy will inevitably make people sick. Trump’s approval ratings have already fallen since the pandemic began in earnest. A recent ABC News/IPSOS poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe he’s mishandled COVID-19; his overall approval rating, meanwhile, sits at a mere 34 percent. A botched start to the school year will sink him even further, not least because it would have the same effect on the economy. Even if there were jobs for parents to take — and there really aren’t, at the moment — they can’t work if they’re sick. The president can tweet all he wants and blame teachers and unions for the preponderance of remote learning this fall. But he can’t deflect blame for his handling of the pandemic forever. If he successfully pushes schools to reopen too early, the bill will come due — right as he asks voters for another four years in power.
