Time
With No End in Sight to the Coronavirus, Some Teachers Are Retiring Rather Than Going Back to School
Katie Rilley - July 8

But the health risks are greater for some educators and other school employees, including bus drivers and custodians, than they are for children. Adults over age 65 account for the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. And 18% of public and private school teachers and 27% of principals are 55 or older, according to federal data. That’s why researchers at the American Enterprise Institute warned of a “school personnel crisis,” recommending in May that school districts provide early retirement incentives or create a “virtual teaching corps” for those who feel safer working remotely.

“I still have not seen any state really address this in their reopening plans. There’s passing references to schools needing to do something for their vulnerable population, but you just don’t see the activity that would match the personnel challenge that schools are going to face,” says John Bailey, an American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow, who wrote the May report. “We shouldn’t be putting teachers in a situation where they have to decide between their financial security and their health security.”

USA Today
School reopening plans are now part of COVID-19 politics. Teachers fear for their safety.
Erin Richards - July 8

Most state and district reopening plans are not addressing what to do with teachers who are considered vulnerable to dangerous COVID-19 infections, said John Bailey, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank in Washington.

"If teachers feel like the plans are unsafe, it’s impossible to open up schools," Bailey said.

Axios
The burden on teachers
Kim Hart - July 16

School districts ought to be finding other roles for teachers who are not comfortable returning to the classroom, such as reassigning them to virtual-only roles or providing one-on-one online tutoring sessions with students, said John Bailey, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former domestic policy adviser during the George W. Bush administration.

But there's not much time to sort that out on top of getting teachers the professional development they need for effective remote learning.

"What I worry about is that we squandered the few months we had to make sure we can think through these challenges," Bailey said. "This was one of the most obvious challenges facing schools with reopening and we should have been thinking about that for the last several months. Instead it's creeping up on districts."

Politico
Trump sours on online learning that his administration evangelized
Michael Stratford - July 18

John Bailey, who served as a White House domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, said there is a puzzling disconnect between Trump’s criticism of schools opting for online education and his Education Department’s previous celebration of local choices.

As coronavirus cases soar in many parts of the country, Bailey said he expected that most schools will adopt some type of mix of online and in-person instruction this fall.

“Everyone knows online learning was not great for a lot of teachers and students and in the spring,” he said. “The focus now needs to be on how we provide the best hybrid learning and online learning — not debating, ‘Should the school be open five days a week or not?’”

As an example, Bailey said, a major problem this spring was how little time teachers and students interacted through online platforms. He cited Census data showing that virtual instruction in American households averaged just a handful of hours each week. “We should be incentivizing more instructional time, not reopening schools,” he said.

Philanthropy Magazine
The Great Distance-Learning Experiment
Madeline Fry Schultz - Summer 2020

Some observers are hopeful. “Covid creates this catalytic moment that helps people think differently,” notes John Bailey of AEI. “We’re going to need new playbooks.” 

Christian Science Monitor
School’s starting soon. Why are parents and kids still in limbo?
Chelsea Sheasley - July 14

John Bailey, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and co-author of “A blueprint for back to school,” says some patience is due. “I think opening a bar or restaurant is much simpler than opening a complex operation like a school,” he says. The plans must reflect the fast-changing nature of the pandemic, which favors a wait-and-see approach, and address concerns of teachers and school staff fearful for their health.

The 74
Reality Check: What Will It Take to Reopen Schools Amid the Pandemic? 

There is growing evidence that many parents will not send their children back to school and instead expect their child to have online learning options.

A recent survey found that nationally, only 27 percent of parents felt comfortable resuming school in August or September. Forsyth County Schools, in Georgia, will offer online learning as an option for any student who wants it next year, after a survey found that 24 percent of parents weren’t comfortable sending their child back to school. Half of parents in New Orleans want the option for continued online learning.

Schools will need to invest more in platforms that choreograph online learning, online content and professional development for their teachers. Standardizing both platforms and content providers can help drive down costs in terms of both initial price and ongoing technical support.

This could also be a cost-saving opportunity. States could develop an Online Teacher Corps, consisting of their school systems’ best-of-the-best online instructors, and share them across district boundaries, which could then free up other teachers to provide tutoring and one-on-one instruction. States could enter into reciprocity agreements that allow their students to have access to the best online courses and providers across state lines.

Schools could also invest in telemedicine as a way of quickly scaling up health and mental health services to support their already overwhelmed school nurses. Hazel Health, for example, partners with schools to enable students to receive immediate care through telemedicine by connecting with one of the service’s network doctors. Manatee offers online mental health options for students and their families.

There’s no question that when students return to school this fall, parents will demand academic and nonacademic options that aren’t constrained by school building walls or geographic boundaries. The challenge for our school systems will be finding ways to meet that demand — quickly.

John Bailey is an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously served in the White House and the U.S. Department of Education. He worked on pandemic preparedness at the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2006.

Baltimore Sun
With pandemic restrictions lifted, Baltimore schools have a chance to regain a little lost time this summer
Liz Bowie - June 18

Evidence from France, Germany and Denmark suggests that opening schools does not rapidly increase the spread of the virus, said John Bailey, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Schools in those countries have been fully reopened.

“You are not seeing a resurgence of the virus,” he said.

That should leave health officials feeling more confident that schools can reopen in the fall in some form, he said. That doesn’t mean that parents will feel secure, however. Bailey noted that in Britain, so few parents sent their children back to school the country has closed schools again.

“It is parent trust — how can you can get parents to send their children to summer school? Second is, how you are making sure you are keeping the physical distance between kids?” he said.

Teachers will have to change the basic way they teach, Bailey said. Before the coronavirus, teachers encouraged small groups to gather in the classroom for a lesson or to do a project together. But that structure is in direct tension with advice to stay six feet apart.