America is currently in the midst of a contentious debate about whether to open the public schools and how to do it. Parents, teachers, and administrators have concerns about the risks and safety. Those are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. But what needs to be called out are the actions of some of the teachers’ unions.

For most of us, the pandemic presents a public health problem. For many of the teachers’ unions, it provides an opportunity to leverage state legislatures and put charter schools out of business. The editors of the Wall Street Journal say there is a phrase for this: political extortion. Another commentator called it educational blackmail. Give it the label you feel most appropriate. It is not a good look for educators.

The American Federation of Teachers declared their support of “safety strikes” if local unions didn’t approve of steps used by school districts to address the virus. Earlier this month, an alliance of teachers’ unions and progressive groups sponsored a “national day of resistance” and listed their demands before returning to the classroom.

Most of the demands have little to do with education and can’t even be addressed by school boards. They range from cancelling rents and mortgages to passing Medicare for All to passing a wealth tax. A few demands do relate to schools like implementing a moratorium on voucher programs and standardized tests along with moving towards “police-free schools.”

These teachers’ unions also want a moratorium on charter schools and want governors and other political leaders to also close private schools. Public schools are funded whether they are open or not. Private and religious schools rely on tuition and donations. Already more than 100 private and religious schools have shut down permanently.

Many of these teachers’ unions seem less interested in finding ways to open schools safely and more interested in threatening strikes to get their progressive wish list.

My commentary yesterday raised the question of whether we would be able to declare a winner in the presidential contest even a week after November 3. If the election isn’t close, then we don’t have to consider those concerns. But the polls in a number of states suggest the election is too close to call.

Ari Fleischer served as press secretary for President George W. Bush. He says, “As a survivor of the 2000 recount, I do not want anyone to go through what happened to George Bush or Al Gore.” He believes this election will test our ability to accurately decide a presidential election without controversy surrounding it.

It is likely that the 2020 election will break all records for turnout. That, he says, is inspired by both love and hate of President Trump. Turnout may exceed 150 million votes. And it is possible that the push for mail-in ballots will drive the number higher.

In the 2016 election, only about 33 million absentee ballots were cast, and less than one perfect were rejected. That still amounted to 318,728 ballots that were rejected. In Florida, 21,973 were rejected. In Pennsylvania, 17,574 were rejected. The totals were similar in a number of other swing states.

Even apart from potential fraud is the problem of properly counting mail-in ballots. In the New York Democratic primary that I mentioned yesterday, 25 percent of those absentee ballots were rejected.

Ari Fleischer reminds us that the problem of mail-in ballots is compounded by states that have not previously engaged in widespread mail-in voting. Washington state, for example, has a long history of mail-in voting. But it took years to get their process right and was not conducted on the middle of a pandemic.
States without such experience should not try this risky experiment of mail-in voting, especially if we believe this election will be close.

Election night on November 3 could be much more confusing that any election in modern times. We usually expect to know who our next president will be before we head to bed. One major exception was the 2000 election night that ended with questions about Florida ballots and hanging chads.

The 2020 election night promises to be even more confusing because of mail-in ballots. If the presidential race is close, we won’t know for some time who will occupy the Oval Office in January. In fact, Facebook’s head, Mark Zuckerberg, said their social media platform is “getting people ready for the fact that there’s a high likelihood that it takes days or weeks to count this — and there’s nothing wrong or illegitimate about that.”

But even after a week or so we still might not know the winner, because of mail-in ballots. Nearly two months after the New York primary election, the final tally in the 12th Congressional District remains a mystery. Originally, Representative Carolyn Maloney was declared the winner by 648 votes. But then the canvassing of 65,000 mailed ballots began, and then lawsuits began to be filed.

Days before the election, the elections office was deluged with applications for absentee ballots. They simply could not process all of the requests. Many ballots were sent to voters late. Those sent to New Yorkers temporarily out of state could not possibly have arrived in time. Then there were problems with postmarks, or none that were put on prepaid mail.

At the moment, Representative Maloney has been declared the winner, although that does not include ballots one judge has ordered to be counted. In the past, we have talked about the possibility of fraud when it comes to mail-in ballots. Here is another factor to consider: government understaffing and government incompetence. This is another reason why to reject the current push for mail-in balloting.

Broken windows and destroyed buildings in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland provide a test of the “broken windows” economic theory. Dr. Merrill Matthews writes about this because some economists failed to learn the lesson from the French economist Frédéric Bastiat.

I have written about this in the past, but here is a quick summary. Bastiat told the story of a shopkeeper with a broken window who must pay the glazier six francs. This seems like good news because it stimulates economic activity. The glazier appreciates his good fortune. The problem is that the shopkeeper could have spent the six francs on something else: new shoes or a book for his library.

The problem with the “broken window” economic theory is that you are taking money from Peter to pay Paul. It may stimulate some economic activity. But the net result is that Paul wins while Peter loses.

Breaking windows, vandalizing buildings, and burning some buildings down will provide economic activity for builders and contractors. But someone will have to pay. Either the money will come from the city budget, which means that those funds will not be available for other city projects. Or the money may come from insurance companies, which means those of us with similar insurance policies will pay more in the future because destruction in these cities. Sadly, for many shopkeepers without insurance, there won’t be money to rebuild. The broken windows will remain broken.

Finally, there is another cost. Some of the people who lived in these cities and neighborhoods will move to safer cities and states. They won’t want to live through the chaos again. Workers who were employed won’t find work in the destroyed areas of the city, so they will either go on unemployment or leave the area to find work elsewhere. These broken windows might merely signal a future broken economy.

Let me start with an important question. Should teachers be considered essential workers? Over the last few months we have designated police officers and firefighters along with doctors, nurses, and health care professionals as essential workers. We even designated grocery workers, delivery drivers, food processors, and truck drivers as essential.

These people (and many more we could list) went to their jobs every day. Some complained, but most considered the potential risks and did what they could to prevent catching the coronavirus. We owe these people a tremendous debt of gratitude. By contrast, lots of public-school teachers and the teachers’ unions are resisting any attempt to reopen the schools. There have been petitions and even protests. That’s why most schools will be closed this fall.

We closed down school systems months ago because we assumed that children would be a most vulnerable group during a pandemic. We now know that children are the least vulnerable to the virus. The American Academy of Pediatricians advocated that schools have “a goal of having students physically present in schools.” The New England Journal of Medicine warns that, “Children living in poverty, children of color, English language learners, children with diagnosed disabilities, and young children face especially severe losses.”

Will some teachers be more at risk than others if schools reopen? That is possible, but one survey found that only 17 percent of public-school teachers are in the vulnerable age range of 55 or older. This would have to be managed. Public schools in other countries in Europe and in Australia have been able to do this successfully.

For years we have been told that educating the next generation is essential. So why shouldn’t governors, mayors, school administrators designate teachers as essential workers? It is a question that I suggest you ask them, especially during this election season.

At just about every protest rally across America, you will hear the words: “Hands up, don’t shoot!” These words were supposed to be the words shouted by Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri before he was killed by police officer Darren Wilson.

Talk show host Larry Elder calls it “The Ferguson Lie” on a PragerU video and spends more than five minutes explaining why it is a lie. Author and columnist Michael Brown refers to it as, “The Ferguson Lie That Will Not Die.” He has an interesting angle to this topic because he shares the same name with Michael Brown.

A few years ago, a colleague of his suggested he sign up for Google Alerts. That will let you know when the name “Michael Brown” appears in the news. For years, he says, at least four articles a day mention the death of Michael Brown. Most write that his last words were, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” That is not true, but the myth is perpetuated every single day and reinforced at every protest rally.

Take the time to watch the PragerU video or read the article by Michael Brown. You will discover that numerous investigations (local, state, and federal) concluded that Michael Brown did not say this and also concluded that Darren Wilson did not overreact to the threat against his life.

For example, the Justice Department did conclude “that the Ferguson Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First, Fourth, and 14th Amendments.” But it also concluded that the evidence did NOT support charges against the police officer that shot Michael Brown.

In previous commentaries I have attempted to debunk myths that have been spread in the political realm and even in the scientific realm. This myth deserves to die because it not only misrepresents what happened in Ferguson, Missouri but is also used to perpetuate another myth about police officers in America.

Adam Mill argues that “If Social Media Wants to Play Doctor, They Should Prepare to be Sued for Malpractice.” He has a point. It involves the frequent debate about the effectiveness of using hydroxychloroquine. Its use got political once the president talked about it during one of the coronavirus task force briefings.

Doctors and researchers can debate how safe and effective it might be, and we can leave that debate to another conversation. The real question is why social media would pull any video about it. Do these social media outlets have doctors evaluating medical procedures? And when they argue that using this drug is dangerous, aren’t they speaking outside of their expertise?

Last month a video from a press conference of doctors was censored because one of the doctors said she treated over 300 COVID-19 patients using the therapy (including vulnerable patients) who all improved. Facebook pulled the video that already had 14 million views. YouTube and Twitter followed suit, arguing that it violated their social media platforms.

They are free to pull a video. But the social media explanations for why they did so raise important questions. They said the medical testimony in the video could not be allowed because (1) the treatment doesn’t work, and (2) the treatment is dangerous. The obvious question to ask is whether “these censorship decisions are being reviewed and approved by actual physicians? Because they’re tantamount to playing doctor to the public.”

If the video is true, then other patients with the virus could be saved by the medical testimony. If information in the video is false, then the correct response would be a rebuttal from licensed physicians and medical researchers.

We have come to expect censorship on social media platforms, censoring medical information and testimony from doctors and physicians is one step further.

It appears that most school districts are headed for another round of online learning. Professor Mark Bauerlein (author of the book, The Dumbest Generation) identifies many problems with online learning and provides some suggestions for parents.

The major problem with online learning is that it occurs on a tool that students already use “to play video games, share photos, watch shows, check Instagram, send messages, order food, get directions, and tweet.” It isn’t easy for even the most dedicated students to refocus it on reading, writing, taking tests, and submitting schoolwork.

He recommends that parents have their students do a writing assignment on paper with a print dictionary and thesaurus. Don’t read books online. Even when they are watching educational videos, have them take notes by hand in a spiral notebook.

Meanwhile, other researchers at the American Enterprise Institute wonder if we are getting out money’s worth with online learning. The average costs per public school pupil in the US was $13,600 a year. Then they went back and calculated the actual costs of live instruction, instructional resources, building maintenance, meals, and computer access.

They conclude that remote school costs on a per-pupil basis only $5,229. Put another way, public schools doing online learning are delivering about 38 cents of education for every dollar in outlays. They conclude that “schools that don’t intend to open this fall have no reason to resist sharing resources with parents who are shouldering the burdens that remote learning entails.”

We’re being overcharged for inadequate education.