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February 16, 2021

Reopening All Schools Requires Public Investment in the Poorest

Plus, CARES Act tax breaks to opioid manufacturers

 

Pre-kindergarten teacher Sarah McCarthy works with a student at Dawes
Elementary in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

The Chief

Last Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally
released a long-awaited set of guidelines for how to safely reopen
schools
.
It really says what the data has said for a while: schools are generally
safe when community transmission is low, less safe when transmission is
high, and only really safe when following mitigation guidelines, which
include masking, social distancing, frequent hand washing and things
like not coughing out loud without covering your mouth, sanitation,
ventilation, quarantine and isolation for the sick, and contact tracing.

Many observers have put the lack of school reopening on teachers and
particularly teachers unions, but the polling shows a different story,
which plays directly into the above paragraph. If you ask parents
whether they want to return their kids to in-person instruction, you see
a significant disparity cut by race and class. In general terms, whiter,
richer parents are more likely to want to return their kids to school;
poorer parents and parents of color do not. And the difference is that,
for the whiter and richer parents, their communities have not been as
ravaged by COVID, and their schools can actually undertake the
mitigation measures.

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Black and Latino communities have seen a disproportionate level of death
and suffering during the pandemic. Whether community transmission is
high right now or not in their area, the accumulated impact makes it
feel high. (In truth, community transmission has been high pretty much
everywhere in the country since late fall, and only now is coming down
to a manageable level.) But just as important, these parents have been
battling their school districts for a basic level of quality in the
places they send their kids for many years. These schools are simply not
equipped for the kinds of adaptations necessary to minimize risk from
COVID.

That's where the Biden relief package comes in. It should be
considered, especially by those concerned about the size or unnecessary
nature of the plan, as a make-good for decades of disinvestment. It's
as much an infrastructure package as anything.

There are public schools in America without soap in the bathrooms. There
are public schools in America, a shocking number of them, with no
working air conditioning system. Lots of schools have no on-site nurses,
and janitorial staffs are often inadequate. Countless students are
jammed into too-small rooms with bursting class sizes. The Philadelphia
Public Schools came up with the idea to put window fans on boards

and have that serve as ventilation for one of the largest and poorest
school districts in the country. Students and staff are headed back in
the Philly schools next week.

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By contrast, this white person's

school district in Brookline, Massachusetts, where the median household
income in 2019 was $121,949
,
is presumably not indicative of these realities.

Some of the CDC guidelines will be difficult no matter what school
people find themselves in. It's hard to get kids to physically
distance or keep masks on or cough into their elbow. And the latest
anger from the open-the-schools set, that six feet of distance is
"impossible" in schools, is mostly a cri de coeur against regulation
itself, as usual for the libertarians

leading the charge. (See this dystopic potential solution
to the
distancing problem, rather than, you know, distancing.)

But it's clear that some schools cannot come close to providing a safe
environment, really even under normal conditions let along during COVID.
They don't have the possibility for distancing, the ventilation, the
medical personnel, or the sanitation measures needed. That's why
there's $130 billion in the American Rescue Plan, which can be put
toward making these necessary adjustments. It includes an "Equity
Challenge Grant" intended to reverse historical inequities in schools
and the impacts on students of color.

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That could easily be put toward investment. How about getting an air
filtration system with the highest-quality filters (a pretty low-cost
option !)
in every school in America? How about money for staffing nurses at every
school, and ensuring a clean environment in every school? This could be
an opportunity, not just to reopen, but to level the playing field in
the built environment of our public school system. There's a concern
that states and cities will take the new money and drop out their share
of funding

for these schools, leaving them in worse position once the one-time
funds are exhausted. Congress could work to try to prevent that, and
should.

Jared Bernstein, now on Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisers,
championed an infrastructure program during the last recession called
FAST
,
or Fix America's Schools Today. He reasoned that upgrading the
nation's schools would create lots of construction jobs while
improving learning long-term. A $50 billion program would produce about
half a million dollars per school building in the U.S., with a focus on
weatherization, better air quality, mold and asbestos abatement,
plumbing updates, boiler and window replacement, and outdoor learning
improvements.

The American Rescue Plan can be a version of FAST, with effects not only
for the pandemic but the future. And this is an area where we ought to
be investing anyway. The concerns from the Larry Summerses of the world
that we're just "throwing away" temporary emergency spending (we're
not) are unfounded, because school upgrades are among the most necessary
infrastructure spending options we can take. It's long overdue.

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Pretty Sneaky Sis

The folks who brought you the opioid crisis are also clever enough to
figure out how to get you, the taxpayer, to pay for their fine. Four
large companies paying major fines in the opioid settlement-the "Big
Three" drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson-are deducting that
settlement from their taxes, saving a combined $4.6 billion
.
Some of these can be challenged by the IRS, but Cardinal Health got
particularly innovative. Because the company insures itself through a
wholly owned subsidiary, its $6.6 billion settlement caused a loss to
that subsidiary's reserve. That loss is being "carried back" to apply
to previous years when Cardinal Health was more profitable.

This "net operating loss carryback" is a new loophole, part of the CARES
Act. It's allowing companies who faced no peril from the coronavirus
crisis to just pull free money from the government. Congress is writing
another relief bill right now, and the net operating loss carryback
could be excised. I've been told repeal may get consideration in the
next reconciliation package, which will have tax provisions in it. But
that'll be too late to stop this billion-dollar giveaway to companies
responsible for the opioid crisis.

What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 28.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* The foreclosure moratorium on publicly-held mortgages and forbearance
relief has been extended to June
.
(The Hill)

* Progressives are wondering about President Biden's commitment to
raising the minimum wage
.
(Associated Press)

* Republicans outside of Washington like the $1.9 trillion rescue
package

just fine. (Washington Post)

* Inflation mania is finally in the rear view mirror
.
(New York Times)

* Rocket strike in Iraq kills one U.S. contractor
.
(Politico)

* Marshall Auerback on the importance of the Biden Buy American
procurement plan .
(American Compass)

* Fixing the hydrofluorocarbon leaks

in grocery stores. (Washington Post)

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