Read on Twitter
THREAD. The U.S. needs to reopen schools this fall. The future earning power of today's students has already been slashed, with dire economic consequences that only reopening can relieve.
My latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-school-closing-costs-crush-children-and-parents?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion
My latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-school-closing-costs-crush-children-and-parents?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion
2/ When it comes to reopening schools, the absence of strategic thinking on a nationwide scale is on stark display. The plan is to have an open economy but return to virtual learning? You can’t have the former if you have the latter. This wishful thinking is destructive.
3/ The U.S. is stumbling through the pandemic, with dire economic consequences for today's parents and for tomorrow's workers.
4/ We should be prioritizing what's most important to society. At the top of the list should be children’s futures & current livelihoods. Socializing in bars should be at the bottom. But by allowing frivolities, we'll have to cut back where it hurts the most, not the least.
5/ Measures should be taken to protect teachers and students when schools reopen. But even with those measures, open schools would likely increase the transmission rate of the virus, so other steps should be taken to slow the spread.
6/ Washington should be providing leadership and guidance to local schools districts on how to reopen, along with funding to help them do so safely.
7/ Many have noted that children need the educational, social and psychological benefits that a normal, five-day school week provides. My @bopinion column highlights the economic loss students are suffering due to virtual learning. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-school-closing-costs-crush-children-and-parents?sref=QK42wmXj
8/ My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests a loss of over $30,000 per decade in earnings for a typical worker who graduated high school but didn’t attend college if school stay closed this fall. The longer schools are closed, the larger the hit future earnings will take.
9/ Virtual learning is closer to no learning for many lower-income households — due, for example, to less reliable internet access and parents whose jobs make it harder for them to stay at home and monitor schooling activity throughout the day.
10/ Keeping schools closed this fall would likely reduce the future earnings of today’s poorer kids the most.
11/ The economic damage from so many young people receiving an inadequate education adds up. A World Bank economics working paper notes that in mid-April, 192 countries had closed all schools and universities, affecting 1.5 billion youths, or 90% of the world’s learners.
12/ The authors found that future global output and incomes will be trillions of dollars lower due to the shutdown, with a loss equivalent to 15% of future GDP. If schools are closed for another four months this fall, the losses will grow much larger.
13/ Parents’ economic outcomes will suffer if schools are closed in the fall, as well. If schools don’t reopen, some parents, including many low-income parents, will have to decide between facilitating home learning for their kids and going to work at all.
14/ Parents who can continue to work remotely will effectively be on a part-time schedule. Many employers are going to be less and less forgiving of the need to juggle parenting and work.
15/ To some degree, the negative effects of working from home while looking after kids are cumulative. This spring, many parents were in survival mode, doing what needed to be done — and only that — each day.
16/ But if four months of virtual working and virtual learning happening under the same roof turns into 10, a cohort of parents of young kids in their prime working years will increasingly miss out on the opportunity do longer-term, deeper, creative work.
17/ This will hurt their careers. It will hurt the overall economy as well, as around one-quarter of workers have a child under the age of 13.
Fin/ Whether schools reopen this fall is a test of the U.S.’s seriousness as a nation. This is one test that children are counting on adults to pass.
I discuss in my latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-school-closing-costs-crush-children-and-parents?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion
I discuss in my latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-school-closing-costs-crush-children-and-parents?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion
