Evaluating the free market by comparing it to the alternatives (We don't need more regulations, We don't need more price controls, No Socialism in the courtroom, Hey, White House, leave us all alone)
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Maryland County would impose a $5,000 fine and up to a year in prison on private school teachers that teach students in person between now and October 1
"Across the nation, politicians and bureaucrats have invoked the COVID
pandemic to seize dictatorial power to ban activities they disapprove.
One of the most brazen examples recently occurred in super-lefty
Montgomery County (MoCo), Maryland, where local health czar Travis
Gayles announced last Friday that he would impose a $5,000 fine and up
to a year in prison on private school teachers that teach students in
person between now and October 1.
New COVID cases have plummeted in MoCo and are at very low levels.
Gayles justified banning private schools in part because of rises in
COVID transmission rates elsewhere in Maryland, the District of
Columbia, and Virginia. Apparently, as long as there are any positive
COVID test results within 300 miles, letting teachers teach is too
risky.
Maryland as a whole has been through the Covid wave and now deaths have plummeted.
On Monday, Gov. Larry Hogan overturned Gayles’ decree, ruling that the “blanket closure mandate imposed by
Montgomery County was overly broad and inconsistent with the powers
intended to be delegated to the county health officer….As long as
schools develop safe and detailed plans that follow CDC and state
guidelines, they should be empowered to do what’s best for their
community.” Hogan declared, “This is a decision for schools and parents, not politicians.”
On Wednesday, Gayles issued a new dictate claiming that local health officers are entitled to “take any action or measure
necessary to prevent the spread of communicable disease” and “issue,
when necessary, special instructions for control of a disease or
condition.” Gayles claims that as long as more than 8 people test
positive for COVID in Montgomery County each day, he is entitled to shut
down all private schools at least until October 1.
In a closed video briefing for county employees on May 28, Gayles
continually invoked “science and data” like a righteous priest invoking
God and the Bible to sanctify scourging his enemies. What does it
require to justify boundless power in a county of a million people? A
COVID positive rate of 0.000008%. Surprise – the dictatorship will last
forever – or at least until the Democratic political machine that runs
the county decides it can profit from loosening the tourniquet it
imposed that helped destroy more than 50,000 jobs and countless small
businesses.
Montgomery County is suffering from epidemic levels of sexually-transmitted diseases including Hepatitis C and chlamydia.
If Gayles has the right to shut down schools based on the 0.000008%
rate, the same standard would justify invoking STD numbers to outlaw all
sex between unmarried adults. But MoCo would never do that because
sexual activity, unlike other private learning, is a freedom that
progressives champion.
Gayles justified his school shutdown dictate: “The purpose of what we’re doing is to keep kids safe.” According to Gayles and other MoCo politicians, nothing matters except politicians’ self-proclaimed good intentions.
But the school shutdowns have profoundly disrupted lives and are increasingly blighting learning. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis headlined,
“The Results Are In for Remote Learning: It Didn’t Work,” noted, “In
many places, lots of students simply didn’t show up online, and
administrators had no good way to find out why not… Soon many districts
weren’t requiring students to do any work at all, increasing the risk
that millions of students would have big gaps in their learning.”
The Center on Reinventing Public Education found that the vast
majority of school districts did not require any live teaching over
video. An analysis by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) noted that
only “one in three school districts expected teachers to provide instruction, track student engagement, or monitor academic progress for all students.”But since teachers in most places continued collecting full pay, the shutdown is wildly popular with teachers unions.
Montgomery County politicians and school officials have endlessly
invoked “closing the achievement gap” to justify boosting school
spending (and property taxes). But school shutdowns are devastating
minorities. The CDC warned last month that “the lack of in-person educational options disproportionately harms low-income and minority children.”
An analysis by McKinsey and Company consultants estimated that if
schools were entirely online until January, on average white students
would lose 6 months of learning, Hispanic students 9 months, Black
students 10 months and low-income students more than a year during the
time school buildings have closed for the pandemic,” the Baltimore Sun reported.
Many parents are desperate to get their children back to learning at
full speed and are seeking private alternatives to shuttered public
schools. Private schools have taken extreme measures to assure the safety of returning students,
installing plexiglass shields, banning field trips, restricting time in
hallways, and minimizing unnecessary contact. In comments last week,
Gayles brushed off their efforts as “niche issues.” Bureaucrats have always considered freedom a niche nuisance.
After controversy erupted over the shutdown order, the County Council
held a session “really showing its hatred of private schools,” Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney, a Catholic father of six kids, observed. Carney tweeted,
“Montgomery County Councilman Craig Rice said that ‘racism’ was behind
the efforts to reopen nonpublic schools–because the bureaucrat who tried
to close them is a black doctor.” Carney summarized Rice’s argument:
“The county shouldn’t allow private schools the same liberty it allowed
public schools (whether to reopen) because ‘affluent’ people are more
willing to expose their own kids to infection than others are.”
Unfortunately, Rice did not bother explaining the “achievement gap”
between local public schools and private schools (many of which spend
far less per student). These are the same local politicians who cheered
on local mass protests over the George Floyd killing in stark violation
of “shelter-at-home” orders at the same time they continue outlawing
church services.
While private teaching is considered inherently too risky to permit,
Montgomery County announced this week that massage parlors would be
permitted to reopen. Local massage parlors are perennially getting busted because Asian
masseuses provide more services to patrons than state law permits. But
masseuses providing “happy endings” to male customers is apparently less
of a public health peril than an adult standing in front of a group of
plexiglassed students explaining algebra.
MoCo politicians pretending to take the high road have actually
turned local children into “revenue hostages.” Gayles’ shutdown order
expires on October 1 – one day after local public schools report their
expected enrollment, which will largely determine how much subsidies
they receive. Keeping private schools shut down could result in tens of
millions of additional tax dollars for the school system even if those
kids never show up for a single class – simply because parents will not
have the opportunity to notify the county of plans to withdraw their
kids for private schools.
The Montgomery County fight has brought out the usual Twitter mobs
proclaiming that any government official who fails to prohibit all
purportedly risky activity is to blame for any resulting illnesses or
deaths. A Twitter user named TeachersAreNotYourSacrificialLambs
responded to Hogan’s action: “He now owns it. Every Maryland private school
illness, hospitalization, and death now falls squarely on his
shoulders. He. Owns. It.” A self-described “progressive democrat”
Twitter user railed at Hogan: “Why does he want dead children &
school staff in Maryland?… Gov Larry just part of the #GOPDeathCult.”
This is typical of how the COVID shutdowns and lockdowns have been
scored: politicians are applauded for everything they ban while enjoying
zero liability for the vast collateral damage they inflict. Many MoCo
school nurses are concerned about the harm from shutdowns of
school-based health centers that effectively serve as primary care
providers for many low-income families. The CDC cited studies
on pandemics that showed “a strong association between length of
quarantine and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, avoidance
behavior, and anger.” Maybe the champions of perpetual shutdowns will
solve that problem by making antidepressants mandatory for all children?
Politicians and bureaucrats who claim a right to outlaw all risks
ignore the risk of tyranny. Gayles and other MoCo politicians sneer at
their critics as if they were unwashed deplorables incapable of
understanding “science.” But their school shutdown policy is simply
Political Science 101, using deceit and demagoguery to seize more power."
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