Douthat's column and the powerful @AlecMacGillis piece it references both argue without much evidence that the resistance to school reopening is largely a reaction to Trump pushing schools to open.

I don't think that's quite right. https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1313496044978790407

Trump's push to open schools regardless of local conditions and in-school adaptation, and his failure to provide any meaningful support, didn't help.

But I think the more significant factor was what was happening with the country's outbreak at the same time.

To reopen in-person in August/early September, schools needed to decide which way to go in July.

And July was a catastrophe. The highest recorded peaks of the outbreak and the highest deaths since the worst days of spring.

Remember that while evidence on school transmission is pretty murky, it appears that 1) kids can and do transmit to some extent, and 2) the level of in-school risk is most dependent on transmission level in the outside community.

So what was influencing the decision that schools/teachers/parents faced in July wasn't just reflexive anti-Trumpism, it was the fact that at that moment case counts, deaths, and positivity rates were spiking across much of the country.

If trendlines from May/June had held, suspect the decisions would have been very different. And I don't think one can simply ascribe the concern about a return to in-school classes to liberal parents hating on Trump.

As pretty liberal parent of two elementary kids, I basically tune out whatever Trump says on this stuff one way or the other. And I am desperate for my kids to go back to the classroom. But when we can be confident it's safe.

The salient failure here is not parents and teachers being overly cautious - but policymakers failing to orient reopening plans toward prioritizing schools ahead of other things, and to put in place substantive measures to address parent/teacher concerns.

Right now here in Montgomery county, bars are open while schools are not.

That's insane. And that drives community transmission more than schools would, which in turn makes schools harder to safely reopen.

And mass-screening of student bodies - which some large colleges have been able to use to stay open - is not even being discussed for schools writ large (and the federal government's stated policy is that this sort of thing isn't even needed). https://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-university-illinois-massive-covid-19-testing-operation/story?id=72686799

So rather than blaming parents, let's put the blame where it belongs: on political leaders who squandered the spring and summer months when we could have been pursuing an aggressive strategy to get schools open safely by fall - but instead did basically fuck-all as cases spiked.