Baker: School reopen plan isn’t one-size-fits-all
Rebukes Trump’s threat to cut funding to closed districts
Gov. Charlie Baker clapped back at President Trump, calling his threat to cut funding from school districts that don’t reopen this fall “inappropriate.”
Speaking from the State House on Wednesday, Baker said he “would like to see kids return to school” and said his administration has been working with colleagues in health care, pediatric and education communities to make that happen.
“But as part of that, DESE (the state Department of Elementary & Secondary Education) is also expecting schools to develop programs that would work on either a hybrid basis or a remote basis depending upon what happens,” Baker said. “It’s inappropriate for the feds to think about this as one-sizefits-all.”
On Wednesday morning, the president tweeted that in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and other countries, “schools are open with no problems.”
“The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!,” Trump tweeted.
The president’s comments came hours before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would issue new guidance on school openings.
In a separate tweet earlier in the day, Trump undermined the recommendations of his own health experts and criticized the CDC’s “very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools.”
Trump administration officials are ramping up the pressure on school districts to reopen even as record numbers of coronavirus cases continue to rack up in states around the country. The World Health Organization last week warned that “the worse is yet to come” in the U.S.
‘’It’s absolutely essential that we get our kids back into the classroom for inperson learning,‘’ Pence said during a Wednesday coronavirus briefing in Washington.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos a day earlier said, “it’s not a matter of if schools should reopen, it’s simply a matter of how.”
Massachusetts — an early hot spot for the virus — continues to see downward trends in key coronavirus metrics, but the level of outbreak varies widely right now from state to state. It is for this reason that Baker said he is criticizing the Trump administration’s single-mindedness on the reopening of schools.
“I don’t think a one-sizefits-all policy on any of these issues makes a lot of sense,” Baker said.