Anya Kamenetz: CDC Didn’t Advocate for Opening Schools the Way Other Countries Did — Politics Was ‘Leading Indicator’ of School Opening

During an interview aired on Monday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” author of “The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now” and former NPR Education Correspondent Anya Kamenetz discussed school openings and closures during the pandemic and stated that “something’s wrong when political affiliation, not case rates, not demographics, is the leading indicator of whether a district is opening or not.” Kamenetz also said that while the World Health Organization and European officials spoke out in favor of opening schools during the pandemic, “our CDC did not speak in the same full-throated way about balancing the needs of children with the need to control the pandemic.”

Kamenetz said, “I think we heard a lot from President Trump about how important it was to open schools. But we didn’t see responses, particularly from people who were on the other side politically. In fact, it was shown that the more likely a county or district was to go for Biden in the 2020 election, the more likely that county was to stay closed for longer and to keep up restrictions like masking. So, something’s wrong when political affiliation, not case rates, not demographics, is the leading indicator of whether a district is opening or not.”

She added that people didn’t trust those who were telling them to reopen schools, “And the lack of trust was on so many levels, Steve. I mean, you think about kind of the legacy that we have of, how do communities of color, for instance, in large cities relate to their public schools.”

Host Steve Inskeep then asked, “Was there also a failure of public health experts here to speak frankly?”

Kamenetz responded, “I think we have to look at public health experts, and not to diminish the difficulty of the job that they were trying to do in this incredibly fast-moving situation, but the World Health Organization and the European equivalent of the CDC spoke very strongly and clearly in favor of opening schools. And our CDC did not speak in the same full-throated way about balancing the needs of children with the need to control the pandemic.”

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