On Reopening Schools, de Blasio Is Right

For the sake of the kids, teachers should get back to work, as other essential workers have done.

Careful readers will have noted a few points of disagreement between this writer and the presiding mayor of New York City. I find fault with Bill de Blasio over his handling of the coronavirus, his management of the police, his decision to move hundreds of derelicts into hotels in my beleaguered neighborhood, and pretty much everything else he does. If de Blasio’s lips are moving, he’s probably saying the opposite of what I think.

These past two weeks, though, de Blasio has for the first time been standing as tall figuratively as he does in the stratosphere. He is taking action that is courageous, responsive to the citizens, and absolutely correct when he pushes the schools to reopen on September 10. “It’s going to be tough. We have to recognize there will be a lot of imperfections,” de Blasio said Thursday. “[But] we need to help our kids begin the pathway to life coming back to normal.” Hear, hear.

The devastating emotional, educational, and developmental toll the virus has taken on children is New York City is as glaringly obvious as the garbage, the boarded-up stores, and the sidewalk encampments of homeless people there. Kids need to get back in school, not just back to online school. It won’t be risk-free for kids, and it won’t be risk-free for those who work in schools, but the virus is something we have to deal with for the near future, and reasonable precautions can be taken to make the schools reasonably safe.

Moreover, lots of New York parents can’t go back to work, in many cases even if their jobs have now moved online, because small children are too disruptive and demanding around the house. New York stands for a certain idea of toughness and resilience; it stands for a prideful bustle of cultural, social, and economic activity; and it simply can’t continue in its present half-asleep fugue state much longer. Time for New York to get going again.