Push to reopen schools could leave out millions of students

President Joe Biden says he wants most schools serving kindergarten through eighth grade to reopen by late April, but even if that happens, it is likely to leave out millions of students, many of them minorities in urban areas.

“We’re going to see kids fall further and further behind, particularly low-income students of color,” said Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform. “There’s potentially a generational level of harm that students have suffered from being out of school for so long.”

Like some other officials and education advocates, Jeffries said powerful teachers unions are standing in the way of bringing back students. The unions insist they are acting to protect teachers and students and their families.

In a call Thursday evening with teachers unions, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, said the reopening of K-8 classrooms nationally might not be possible on Biden’s time frame. He cited concern over new variants of the virus that allow it to spread more quickly and may be more resistant to vaccines.

Jeffries acknowledges that there are reasons it’s harder to open schools in cities: They’re more densely populated, meaning the virus can spread faster; more people rely on public transportation, a potential hot spot for contamination; and more parents have frontline jobs that could expose them, and, in turn, their children, to the virus.