"Why, for example, wasn’t there an all-government effort to get schools reopened sooner and more consistently?"

This is not a hard one to answer.

David Roth quotes Amy Davidson Sorkin, who wrote:

Despite the near-miracle of the vaccine, which became available in December, 2020, there was much about the pandemic response that was far from perfect, in both blue and red states. Why, for example, wasn’t there an all-government effort to get schools reopened sooner and more consistently? There were reasonable concerns about infection and the impact on teachers and on vulnerable family members. Still, the costs of those closures have become more clear with each passing year.

I have a few answers to this question. Not perfect answers, but some attempt to move beyond the rhetorical question. They don’t seem quite like what would go in the New Yorker’s letters column, so I’ll post them here:

1. When it comes to the question of why there wasn’t “an all-government effort,” my response is that schools in the United States are under state and local control. I don’t know of any national rules on school curricula, school attendance, or even the length of the school year. My impression is that standards are set at the state level, and then local school districts decide what to do. And that’s just public schools. Religious and nonsectarian private schools have a lot more flexibility in practice. So, any all-government effort would have required an increase in government capacity and coordination on education, far beyond anything we’ve ever seen before in this country.

Why did this not happen? The answer is, as they say, overdetermined. First, the federal government is divided into three branches which have to agree on major policy or constitutional changes. Second, recalcitrant states and localities would’ve needed to get on board. Third, there would be a lot of opposition, both political and ideological, to nationalizing any aspect of the education system. Fourth, public opinion on school closings was very divided: there was no overwhelming public opinion consensus to “get schools reopened sooner,” let alone a consensus for the level of political coordination required for this to be done “more consistently.”

2. “There were reasonable concerns about infection and the impact on teachers and on vulnerable family members.” Yes, and there were also lots of unreasonable concerns---I remember hearing of a professor at my university who wanted to teach remotely because his sister-in-law was immunocompromised, or something like that. My impression was that he was just too lazy to go to work. If your sister-in-law has a peanut allergy, does that mean you don’t have to go to your job at the Skippy factory and you still get paid?

Anyway, lots of reasonable concerns, lots of some unreasonable concerns, and lots of free riders. The usual story. So, yeah, that’s one reason there wasn’t “an all-government effort to get schools reopened sooner and more consistently”: the people with these concerns and interests had some political influence, which can happen when a group cares strongly about an issue.

3. “Still, the costs of those closures have become more clear with each passing year.” Yeah, and after a couple years they did reopen the schools! Changing views in later years wouldn’t motivate a change in policy, years before those views changed.

I’m no expert on schools or school-closing policies, and so my reactions here are based on my recent personal experiences with Columbia University and various other universities and private and public secondary schools, along with my general understanding of political science, as expressed above.

I personally was annoyed by school closings and favored earlier openings. I hate remote teaching and, after the first few months of extreme uncertainty and fear in spring 2000, I was frustrated when Columbia required us to teach our classes remotely, locked down the campus, would not let us into our offices, all sorts of things like that. I returned to in-person teaching as soon as I was allowed. I stopped doing the “hybrid” thing after they stopped requiring me to do it. There was also an annoying residue, as the Columbia campus remains locked down. Unlike every other university I know of, you can’t just walk on to campus from the street. We’re closed off from the community. This is not all due to covid; the administration has also been working hard for a few years to stifle dissent regarding Israel/Palestine---but I think it’s been easier for the administration to continue this horrible, anti-academic lockdown policy because they can just stick with the covid-era security restrictions.

Beyond that, I think the whole educational and research environment as the university has degraded, as nowadays it’s natural for students and faculty to just not show up to the office except when they have classes or meetings. This is a continuation of remote-work trends but got a big boost from covid.

Let me put it this way: the environment within Columbia University in recent years is similar to that in Sciences Po when I taught in the economics department there in 2009: there’s not much of a sense of “campus.” There are classes and seminars, but you can’t just show up at the office and talk with whoever’s around. Or, I should say, yes, you can do this, but very few students and faculty will be around to talk; they’ll mostly be at home. Back in 2009, I took this as a property of hedonistic European culture compared to hard-core show-up-to-work American culture. Thanks to covid and more internet connectivity, it seems that we’ve caught up to Europe in that respect!

As for school shutdowns for the kids: That varies. There were some good experiences, some ways in which remote learning gave the kids the flexibility to learn at their own pace. Overall, though, I agree with Sorkin that school shutdowns were not a good thing, and I was frustrated at the pace of reopening. As with Columbia, some of the slow reopening seemed to be for administrative convenience rather than anything else: by allowing remote education, you don’t have to twist the arms of teachers who are reluctant to go back or parents and kids who have some issues with in-person schools. I was happy when schools returned to normal, and I was happy when the Columbia administration finally moved to require in-person teaching.

So, I get what Sorkin was saying. But, “Why, for example, wasn’t there an all-government effort to get schools reopened sooner and more consistently?” That’s an easy one. Just because many people have strong feelings about a topic, doesn’t mean that a direct political solution is feasible.