President Joe Biden and his administration are clearly in no rush to get children back to in-person learning, despite scientific experts and data suggesting immediate school reopening.
During her Tuesday press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki proudly declared that Biden’s goal to have children back to classroom learning by his 100th day in office, in April, only applies to half the country’s schools and only requires one day of in-person learning — meaning just 50 percent of kids attending school for about five days total would accomplish the “goal.”
“His goal that he set is to have the majority of schools, so more than 50 percent, open by day 100 of his presidency, and that means some teaching in classrooms, so at least one day a week — hopefully it’s more — and obviously it is as much as is safe in each school and local district,” Psaki said.
When the reporter who asked her about school reopenings questioned what “some” teaching meant, Psaki doubled down on the Biden administration’s plan to require just one day of in-person learning per week in “the majority of schools.”
White House: Our goal is to have 50 percent of schools open by April 30, 2021 — “at least one day per week” pic.twitter.com/7VNpG9i0Sx
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 9, 2021
While the Biden administration built its campaign around “following the science” about COVID-19, the White House has taken a slow and anti-science approach to children and teachers returning to schools.
Last week, Psaki tried to obscure expert medical guidance that conflicts with teachers union demands about returning to school, mischaracterizing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to suggest that students should remain at home. Shortly before that, Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain claimed that a landmark CDC study documenting COVID-19 transmission among students and teachers was only applicable to rural schools, discounting its results to fit the Biden administration’s ever-growing anti-school-reopening agenda and siding with teachers unions.
“The CDC study, which I know has received a lot of attention, was based on kind of an area that was more rural in Wisconsin. … For areas where they are more populated or schools where there is a lot more foot traffic … there are going to need to be a lot of steps put in place in order to make the schools reopening safe,” Psaki said.
“I don’t think unions are overruling studies,” Klain said on CNN. “I think what you’re seeing is schools that haven’t made the investments to keep the students safe.”
