President Trump said the White House would put pressure on governors to get schools opened in the fall amid rising coronavirus cases in the United States, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “We don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed. No way.”
Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran has issued an executive order requiring all of Florida’s public K-12 schools to reopen in August despite a surge in coronavirus cases, WTXL reports.
The Trump administration announced that international students who attend college in the United States on visas will be barred from staying in the country if their school’s classes are entirely online during the fall semester, Politico reports.
“Many colleges will be left in a tough spot by the policy: Reopen their schools to in-person learning despite rising numbers of coronavirus infections or face losing international students and their tuition. Some international students already had left the U.S. when the pandemic broke out and they and their colleges were hoping they could return in the fall, but most are thought to have remained here.”
Princeton University will remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges, the New York Times reports.
The university’s board of trustees found that the former president’s “racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college whose scholars, students, and alumni must stand firmly against racism in all its forms.”
Benjy Sarlin: “It can be argued that the degree to which in-person classes can return is the single biggest unanswered policy question of the crisis, with impacts on health, business and inequality and on elections for everything from president to county executive.”
“A botched reopening could have disastrous consequences that ripple across society at every level — and some experts are issuing warnings about just that scenario.”
Ivanka Trump released the speech she had prepared to give at Wichita State University Tech’s commencement ceremony before she was dropped as a speaker.
Plans to have her speak there were canceled amid criticism over the president’s response to protests against the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools,” the New York Times reports.
“An Alaska school board voted last week to remove five books, including classic American works like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Great Gatsby, from its curriculum for high school English electives because of sexual references, graphic language and other concerns,” the New York Times reports.
“The other books on the list — Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien — were judged to be inappropriate because they contained mentions of rape, incest, racial slurs, profanity and misogyny.”
As states continue to roll out plans to reopen their economies, President Trump told governors during a Monday phone call that they should also “seriously consider” reopening their schools, ABC News reports.
Said Trump: “Some of you might start thinking about school openings. Because a lot of people are wanting to have the school openings. It’s not a big subject, young children have done very well in this disaster that we’ve all gone through. So a lot of people are thinking about the school openings.”
“Jerry Falwell Jr.’s angry counteroffensive against critics of his decision to invite Liberty University students back to its Lynchburg, Va., campus after spring break has played out in the media, the courts, even with the campus police,” the New York Times reports.
“But his campaign has been undermined by the spread of a virus he cannot control.”
“Since March 29, when the first case was diagnosed in a Liberty student living off-campus, confirmed coronavirus cases in the Central Virginia health district, which surrounds Lynchburg and Liberty, have grown from seven to 78. One person has died.”
Liberty University students filed a class action lawsuit against the school alleging that the university and it’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr., placed “students at severe physical risk and refused to refund thousands of dollars in fees owed to them for the Spring 2020 semester,” the New York Times reports.
Falwell downplayed the pandemic for weeks before finally announcing a shift to online instruction in late March. However, the school invited students to stay in its residence halls and will only give students a $1,000 credit if the leave campus.
“New York City’s public school system, the largest in the country, will remain closed for the rest of the school year as the city continues to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday morning that the schools, which have been closed since March 16, won’t reopen until September.”
The arrest warrants that Jerry Falwell Jr. said were issued for misdemeanor trespassing for a New York Times photographer and ProPublica reporter were actually issued by a member of Liberty University’s campus police and do not appear to have legal weight, Business Insider reports.
“Chronic absenteeism is a problem in American education during the best of times, but now, with the vast majority of the nation’s school buildings closed and lessons being conducted remotely, more students than ever are missing class — not logging on, not checking in or not completing assignments,” the New York Times reports.
“The absence rate appears particularly high in schools with many low-income students, whose access to home computers and internet connections can be spotty. Some teachers report that less than half their students are regularly participating.”
“The trend is leading to widespread concern among educators, with talk of a potential need for summer sessions, an early start in the fall, or perhaps having some or even all students repeat a grade once Americans are able to return to classrooms.”
“As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health service about the rampaging coronavirus,” the New York Times reports.
“So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm, epidemiologically and otherwise. As of Friday, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.”
“As the coronavirus threatens to spread across the Lynchburg region, Liberty University officials are preparing to welcome back up to 5,000 students from spring break this week,” the Lynchburg News & Advance reports.
“Defying a national trend of campus closures, President Jerry Falwell Jr. has invited students to return to residence halls and has directed faculty members to continue to report to campus even as most classes move online.”
Said Falwell: “I think we have a responsibility to our students — who paid to be here, who want to be here, who love it here — to give them the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life.”
Politico: “The coronavirus outbreak could close down many U.S. classrooms for the rest of the school year, blowing a hole in kids’ math and reading skills, tanking test scores for years to come and making it a scramble for some to even finish high school.”
“As student debt continues to climb, President Trump on Monday released a budget for 2021 that would slash many of the programs aimed at helping borrowers,” CNBC reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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