Alex Brandon / AP
President Donald Trump listens during a “National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America’s Schools,” event in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 7, 2020, in Washington.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Last week, the Clark County School Board voted to begin the new school year with full-time distance learning. Of course, we all wish our students and teachers could return to the classroom, but the sad reality is that the Trump administration has failed to get this pandemic under control.
Instead, President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have repeatedly attempted to force unsafe school reopenings and threatened to withhold vital federal funding for schools.
As coronavirus cases surge throughout the country, and as the start of the academic year draws closer, Trump’s failure to offer a concrete plan for schools to reopen safely is jeopardizing the health, safety and livelihoods of our families, educators, students and caregivers.
Home means Nevada to nearly 48,000 multigenerational households, which are particularly common in Black, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander and immigrant communities. This month, a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that in Nevada, 34,000 seniors live in homes with school-age children. For these families, social distancing can be close to impossible. That’s why, when it comes to the decision to reopen schools, the health and well-being of entire families and communities are all on the line.
Last week, I introduced the Reopen Schools Safely Act, which would provide over $800 million for schools in Nevada to adapt to challenges in the upcoming school year. School districts that choose to have in-person classes must have access to adequate personal protective equipment, diagnostic and monitoring equipment, and increased sanitation supplies. Schools districts like Clark County must ensure that all students have the resources they need to learn from home. The bill would also provide local school districts and education leaders with the flexibility to react and adapt to changing conditions as outbreaks occur, instead of pursuing a doomed one-size-fits-all approach.
This pandemic is a test of leadership, and Trump has failed. He has rejected the advice of experts, weakened the CDC’s guidance and openly downplayed the risk of children spreading coronavirus. When he puts politics before public health, students get left behind, and families and educators are forced to put their health and safety at risk.
Unfortunately, working families and early childhood caregivers have been hung out to dry by the Trump administration from the beginning. As a candidate in 2016, Trump promised to reduce the cost of child care; but in office, Trump’s tax scam handed out massive giveaways to the ultra-wealthy while reducing the value of child care credits for many working families.
Recently, the administration scaled back paid leave requirements for employers. As the pandemic casts our country’s child care crisis into sharp relief, the price of Trump’s failures is being disproportionately paid by women. And for the fourth consecutive year, Trump’s proposed budget for 2020 would have made deep cuts to critical education programs in Nevada to pay for his administration’s anti-public school agenda.
Those are the kind of policies you get from someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In November, we have the chance to replace him with a leader who understands the struggles of working people and caregivers. That’s Joe Biden, who has released plans to safely get our school year back on track and build a caring economy that emphasizes early childhood education. Nevada’s working families and caregivers deserve better than Trump’s broken promises. In the midst of this crisis, we need a president who will listen to the experts and step up to the challenge.
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., is in her fifth term in Congress, where she represents the state’s 1st Congressional District.
