America’s biggest school systems across the country are rejecting President Donald Trump’s repeated demands to reopen schools this fall, Politico reports.
The president has spent the past two weeks demanding — often in all caps on Twitter — that American schools reopen this fall. But one city and county after another are opting for virtual education or just a few days a week in school, and Trump has little power to do anything about it.
According to Politico, “the Los Angeles and San Diego school districts announced Monday they will start the upcoming school year with full distance learning. New York City schools will offer a mix of in-person classes and online learning. In suburban D.C., Maryland’s largest district is proposing to start the year with virtual learning. Other districts are considering just two or three days a week with limited students in the classroom, with kids continuing to learn from home the rest of the time.”
The superintendent of Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools is also casting doubt on the possibility of kids returning to classrooms in the fall if the city remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
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Republicans have said for decades school decisions should be made at the local and state level, and have often held the U.S. Department of Education in disdain. So even as Trump and DeVos push kids to board buses and head back to school, they can’t force the issue. Most education spending is overseen at the state and district level, and there is little the federal government can do to carry through on Trump’s demands that schools reopen and aid an economic upturn.
Other school districts rejecting Trump’s mandate include Maryland’s Montgomery County school district, New York City school system, Chicago Public Schools, Clark County, Nevada school system, Texas’ Houston ISD and Dallas ISD, Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools, Orange County Public Schools, and Palm Beach County School District.
Read the entire report here.
