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      Trump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationTrump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020Are we really going to do this again?Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.March 1, 2021Credit…Mark Peterson for The New York TimesBret Stephens: I don’t know about you, Gail, but watching Donald Trump’s speech at the CPAC conference in Orlando brought to mind that Michael Corleone line: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Here we were, barely a month into the Biden presidency, thinking we could finally put one American disaster behind us and have normal arguments about normal subjects, and now we may be staring at the worst sequel of all time.The idea of another Trump presidential run is worse than “The Godfather Part III.” It’s “Dumb and Dumberer” meets “Friday the 13th Part VIII.”Gail Collins: Well, he made it very clear he’s planning on a “triumphant return to the White House.” If you folks want to save the Republican Party, you’re going to have to take him on.Bret: I’ve always wanted to write a musical called “The Mitt and I.”Gail: Seeing Trump so clearly gearing up for another presidential run brought me back to an ongoing argument we’ve been having. Third parties. Am I to understand you’re a fan?Bret: I’m not a fan of third parties that have no hope of winning elections and mainly serve as vanity projects for the likes of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. And I’m obviously not a fan of extremist parties, whether they are of the George Wallace or Henry Wallace varieties.On the other hand, I’d be a fan of a right-of-center party that can replace the current Republican Party, one that believes in the virtues of small government and personal responsibility without being nativist and nasty.Gail: A lovely idea, but it’s not going to work. Nobody’s ever made it work. We’ve already seen an exodus of moderates and sane conservatives from the Republican Party, leaving it even loopier. And Trump is threatening to start a third party of his own, or at least he was, which would split things even more.Feel free to daydream about the perfect, sane, moderate alternative Republican Party, Bret, but no chance.Bret: Well, Abe Lincoln made it work by building a party on the wreckage of the Whigs.Gail: Not going to interject that it took a civil war …Bret: And there’s a political moment here. Gallup released a poll two weeks ago showing that 62 percent of Americans believe that “parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.” Among self-identified Republicans, the number was a notch higher: 63 percent. I think you are underestimating the number of people who feel they’ve been abandoned by a Republican Party that became a whacked-out cult of personality under Trump. What’s missing isn’t an agenda; it’s a galvanizing personality to lead a new movement.Gail: Which galvanizing personality do you have in mind — Mitt Romney?Bret: Given what happened to the G.O.P., I bet you sometimes wish he’d won back in 2012.Gail: Um, no. But let’s look at now. Reforming the current Republican Party would mean a million grass-roots battles to retake the base. Understandable that people would just prefer to start a new movement — much less nasty infighting. Just sincere get-togethers of like-minded people, holding barbecues and giving interviews to folks like us who are desperate to think this could work.But you could never create a massive 50-state party structure, with enough voters willing to make the very large decision of abandoning the party they’ve identified with forever. More

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      A Letter to My Liberal Friends

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyA Letter to My Liberal FriendsIf you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 1, 2021, 8:08 p.m. ETCredit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressLast Wednesday, Nick Kristof addressed his column to his conservative hometown friends in Yamhill, Ore., urging them to hold liberals accountable while doing the same for right-wing extremists, kooks and charlatans. In that spirit — and with Nick’s cheerful acquiescence — I offer a rejoinder in the form of a letter to my liberal friends.Dear Friends,No, I can’t relax! And no, I’m not worried that the Biden administration is going to send Trump voters to “re-education camps,” impose Cuban-style socialism or put out the welcome mat for MS-13. I’m just afraid that today’s Democratic leaders might look to the very Democratic state of California as a model for America’s future.You remember California: People used to want to move there, start businesses, raise families, live their American dream.These days, not so much. Between July 2019 and July 2020, more people — 135,400 to be precise — left the state than moved in, one of only a dozen times in over a century when that’s happened. The website exitcalifornia.org helps keep track of where these Golden State exiles go. No. 1 destination: Texas, followed by Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Three of those states have no state income tax, while Arizona’s is capped at 4.5 percent for married couples making over $318,000.In California, by contrast, married couples pay more than twice that rate on income above $116,000. (And rates go even higher for higher earners.) Californians also pay some of the nation’s highest sales tax rates (8.66 percent) and corporate tax rates (8.84 percent), as well as the highest taxes on gasoline (63 cents on a gallon as of January, as compared with 20 cents in Texas).Some of my liberal friends tell me that tax rates basically don’t matter in terms of the way people work and economies perform. Uh-huh. Still, I’d have an easier time accepting the argument if all those taxes went toward high-quality government services: good schools, safe streets, solid infrastructure or fiscal health.How does California fare on these fronts? The state ranks 21st in the country in terms of spending per public school pupil, but 37th in its K-12 educational outcomes. It ties Oregon for third place among states in terms of its per capita homeless rate. Infrastructure? As of 2019, the state had an estimated $70 billion in deferred maintenance backlog. Debt? The state’s unfunded pension liabilities in 2019 ran north of $1.1 trillion, according to an analysis by Stanford professor Joe Nation, or $81,300 per household.And then there’s liberal governance in the cities. In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin has championed the calls for decriminalizing prostitution, public urination, public camping, blocking sidewalks and open-air drug use. Click this link and take a brief stroll through a local train station to see how these sorts of policies work out.Predictably, a result of decriminalization has been more actual criminality. Recent trends include an estimated 51 percent jump in San Francisco burglaries and a 41 percent jump in arsons. For the Bay Area as a whole, there has been a 35 percent spike in homicides.Yes, homicides have been rising in cities around the country. But those trends themselves owe much to liberal governance in like-minded jurisdictions like Seattle and New York, with their recent emphasis on depolicing, decarceration, defunding, decriminalization and other deluded attempts at criminal-justice reform.Funny, you don’t hear this about the places Californians are fleeing to. Austin, the preferred destination of San Francisco exiles, remains one of the safest big cities in America (and it’s run by a Democrat). Another thing you don’t hear from Texas: a board of education voting — as San Francisco’s just did — to strip the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Paul Revere from their respective schools, on grounds of sinning against the more recent commandments of progressive dogma. Not that it really matters, since all these schools remain closed for in-person learning thanks to the resistance of teachers unions.And then there is California’s political class. Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats, 42 of its 53 seats in the House, have lopsided majorities in the State Assembly and Senate, run nearly every big city and have controlled the governor’s mansion for a decade. If ever there was a perfect laboratory for liberal governance, this is it. So how do you explain these results?For four years, liberals have had a hard time understanding how any American could even think of voting for Republicans, given the party’s fealty to the former president. I’ve shared some of that bewilderment myself. But — to adapt a line from another notorious Californian — Democrats won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, meaning the consequences of liberal misrule will be harder to disguise or disavow. If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur.My unsolicited advice: Like Republicans, Democrats do best when they govern from the center. Forget California, think Colorado. A purple country needs a purple president — and a political opposition with the credibility to keep him honest.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      New York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?By deferring decisions on desegregating schools, Mayor Bill de Blasio has pushed those choices onto his successor — and into the race to replace him.The admissions process for elite schools like Stuyvesant High School has become one of the most fraught political issues in New York City.Credit…Christopher Lee for The New York TimesJan. 29, 2021Updated 8:12 a.m. ETDuring a recent forum on education, a moderator asked the crowded field of Democrats running to be New York City’s next mayor a question they may not have wanted to answer: How would they approach the fraught issue of admissions into the city’s selective schools, where Black and Latino students are starkly underrepresented? A few of the candidates’ eyes widened when they heard the prompt, and some avoided furnishing a direct answer, resorting instead to vague language.“There are a lot of things we need to do in this direction,” said Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate. Raymond J. McGuire, a Wall Street executive, noted that the issue had “historic significance.” Those halting responses illustrate just how incendiary school integration still is in this proudly liberal city. But with the Democratic primary just five months away, the candidates have little choice but to confront school segregation, which has divided New Yorkers for a half-century. An influential activist movement led by city students is accelerating pressure on the candidates to make clear how integration would fit into their plans to reshape New York’s public school system, the nation’s largest. And a national reckoning over racism has forced the candidates to square the city’s self-image as a progressive bastion with its unequal school system. During the last few weeks alone, the candidates have been asked about their positions on radio and television interviews, in multiple forums, and in a series of New York Times interviews. Together, their responses revealed sharp differences in how they are approaching some of the most contentious integration policies.New York City is home to one of the most segregated school systems in America, in part because of the city’s labyrinth admissions process for selective schools. Housing segregation and school zone lines have produced a divided school system that has been compounded by competitive admissions that separate students by race and class as early as kindergarten.Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a sweeping set of changes to how hundreds of racially segregated selective schools admit their students — but left most of the details up to the next administration.Some of the mayoral hopefuls are in favor of addressing the extreme underrepresentation of Black and Latino students in selective schools by overhauling gifted and talented programs and changing admissions for competitive middle schools and elite high schools. Others are offering less sweeping approaches. And several candidates declined to say anything definitive about those proposals, or said they would mostly maintain the existing system.Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, with his son Max. Mr. Stringer had previously avoided integration debates, but has recently moved to the left along with his party.Credit…Kholood Eid for The New York TimesThe most progressive candidates, including Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, are hoping to differentiate themselves from the pack by declaring their intentions to push potentially disruptive change that could spur integration.There are subtle differences even within that lane: Maya Wiley, a former de Blasio administration official who has been a leading figure in the pro-integration movement, sometimes gave conspicuously broad answers to direct questions about the policies she would implement as mayor. Mr. Stringer, who had assiduously avoided integration debates even in his own neighborhood, has recently moved to the left along with his party. Shaun Donovan, the former secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, has released the most detailed education policy plan so far, saying he would eliminate most academic prerequisites for middle school admissions and add weighted lotteries to further integrate those schools.More centrist hopefuls like Mr. McGuire, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, all promised to expand selective programs and schools, rather than fundamentally change them. That position is shared by Mr. Yang, the former head of a test preparation company, who declined an interview. Some education experts believe that desegregation is one of the few remaining levers available for improving academic outcomes for the city’s vulnerable students, many of whom have had little choice but to enroll in low-performing schools.“The plainest way to think of integration is that it is a proven and effective school improvement strategy,” said Matt Gonzales, the director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at New York University’s Metro Center. Decades of research supports that view — not because there is alchemy found in diverse classrooms, but because integration redistributes resources, funding and power across schools. Mr. Gonzales said the candidates’ positions on this issue are not merely a signal of their progressive bona fides, but an essential way of understanding their approach to education. Mr. de Blasio’s education agenda has largely not included desegregation measures, and he has left major decisions related to integration to the next mayor. Dianne Morales, who is running to be the first Afro-Latina mayor, has among the strongest pro-integration positions of any of the candidates.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesHe has largely ignored a recommendation, made by a school integration group he convened, that the city should replace gifted and talented programs with magnet schools and enrichment programs. The next administration will likely have to respond. Mr. de Blasio said this month that he would soon scrap the current gifted exam given to 4-year-olds against the advice of many experts, though the city’s educational panel may force him to end the test immediately. But most of the candidates had already committed to changing that test, and will now have to determine whether to alter the program itself. And last month, Mr. de Blasio paused the use of academic prerequisites for middle school admissions for at least a year because of the pandemic. That will leave it up to the next mayor to decide whether to make that policy permanent — or end it. Ms. Wiley, who helped craft that proposal as a leader of the mayor’s integration group, said she would end middle school screening, as did Ms. Morales. Some candidates tried to find a middle ground: Mr. Stringer and Mr. McGuire said they would consider this year a pilot program, and make a permanent decision next year. Ms. Garcia said she would look at changes on a district-by-district basis, and Mr. Yang expressed skepticism about eliminating middle school screening during a recent forum.Gifted education is a third-rail issue because the programs have long been seen as a way to keep white families in public schools, and have been embraced by some middle-class families of color as alternatives to low-performing neighborhood schools. But some experts have argued that gifted schools have created a two-tiered system that caters to families with the resources to navigate it. Roughly 75 percent of students in gifted classes are white or Asian-American. Mr. Stringer said that his own children, who are in gifted programs, had benefited from a flawed system because of their parents’ privilege. “I recognize as a parent, I’m going to do everything I can to do the best for my kid,” he said. “But as mayor, I have to do what’s best for every child.” Mr. Yang offered a starkly different message in a recent forum, arguing that some parents would flee the city without gifted classes. “Families are looking up and saying, ‘Is New York where my kids are going to flourish?’” Mr. Adams and Ms. Garcia said they would create more gifted classes in low-income neighborhoods, the favored policy position of many supporters of gifted programs. Activists have said that expanding gifted would only contribute to an inherently unfair system. Mr. McGuire said he would not “dismantle the programs, but I’d take a close look to make sure it’s fair and achieving its purpose.” Some candidates seemed eager to please all sides on the contentious if narrow issue of the entry exam for eight elite high schools, which is partially controlled by the State Legislature. In 2018, Mr. de Blasio started a campaign to eliminate the test. His effort failed after many low-income Asian-American families, whose children are overrepresented in the schools, mounted a massive effort to oppose the city’s plan. “I support efforts to desegregate the schools,” Raymond McGuire said in an interview. “This is basic equity, and it needs to happen.”Credit…Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesMr. Adams’ record on the issue demonstrates why so many politicians have tried to avoid staking out a position on the test. The borough president had long opposed the exam, and compared the specialized schools to “a Jim Crow school system.” But just a few weeks after he appeared at a news conference to trumpet the mayor’s plan, Mr. Adams reversed course following an outcry from some parents, particularly Asian Americans. Ms. Wiley has been a consistent critic of the exam, which she called discriminatory, but did not say exactly how she would approach the issue as mayor. Ms. Morales, Mr. Stringer and Brooklyn City Councilman Carlos Menchaca said that they would eliminate the exam.Ms. Morales graduated from Stuyvesant High School in the 1980s, and has watched with despair as the number of Black and Latino students at the school has dwindled. She said that going through the admissions process with her own children felt like an “obstacle course of barriers, targeted toward the people who are best positioned to overcome them.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. McGuire, Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have said they would keep the exam in place, but promised to build additional specialized schools. That strategy was already tried by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but has not led to greater diversity. The candidates have mostly not provided specifics for how their approach would differ.That came as no surprise to Christina Greer, a professor of political science at Fordham University, who expects the candidates to remain vague to avoid offending voters. “A lot of liberals like integration in theory, as long as it doesn’t touch their children at all,” she said. “For a lot of politicians, integration is a no-win.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      We’ve Reached ‘Safe Harbor’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Schools During CoronavirusN.Y.C. ReopeningCollege PlansTeacher BurnoutOutdoor SchoolsMusic StudentsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn PoliticsWe’ve Reached ‘Safe Harbor’Dec. 9, 2020, 7:01 a.m. ETThe Supreme Court shoots down a Republican challenge in Pennsylvania as states pass a critical deadline. It’s Wednesday, and this is your politics tip sheet. Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Where things standWith a flick of the wrist, the Supreme Court cut down a Republican attempt to have President Trump’s loss in Pennsylvania overturned. In a one-sentence order yesterday, with no justices publicly dissenting, the court refused to hear a challenge to the use of mail ballots in Pennsylvania.It was a stark rejection of Trump’s attempts to dispute the election, from a court that includes three justices he appointed and upon which he had pinned his postelection hopes.The country yesterday reached what elections experts refer to as the “safe harbor” deadline, generally accepted to be the date by which all state-level election challenges — such as recounts and audits — must be completed. State courts are likely to throw out any new lawsuit challenging the election after this deadline. Whether he openly admits it or not, Trump’s attempt to overturn the election appears to be nearing its inevitable end.The White House dived back into stimulus negotiations with congressional Democrats yesterday, offering a $916 billion proposal that Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, shared with Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. The deal would include one-time cash payments to Americans and aid to state, local and tribal governments.The proposal also includes a provision granting broad legal immunities to employers that have kept on workers during the pandemic. That’s a key demand of Republicans, but it’s a line that Democratic leaders have said they’re unwilling to cross.McConnell indicated early yesterday that he would drop his demand for the sweeping liability shield if Democrats would give up on seeking billions of dollars in aid for state and local governments. But Democratic leaders quickly dismissed that idea.Now that it’s in a lame-duck session, Congress seems uncommonly busy. The House passed a military spending bill yesterday that includes language removing Confederate names from American military bases, something President Trump has vowed to veto.This sets up the potential for the first veto override of Trump’s presidency. The bill passed the House with a veto-proof bipartisan majority of 335 to 78, and now heads to the Senate, where it is also expected to receive overwhelming support.Congress has successfully passed annual military spending legislation in each of the past 60 years. But the president remains opposed. “I hope House Republicans will vote against the very weak National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which I will VETO,” Trump wrote on Twitter.Joe Biden will pick Representative Marcia Fudge, Democrat of Ohio, to serve as secretary of housing and urban development, and he wants to bring Tom Vilsack back to his old job as agriculture secretary, according to people familiar with the presidential transition process.Meanwhile, retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, whom Biden intends to name as defense secretary, is running into bipartisan resistance amid concerns over choosing another former commander to run the Pentagon. The recent trend has bucked the longtime tradition of civilian control over the military.Austin, who would become the country’s first Black defense secretary, would need to receive a waiver from Congress because he retired from the service fewer than seven years ago. Congress granted a waiver to Jim Mattis four years ago to serve as Trump’s first defense secretary.But adding to the concerns over Austin are his ties to Raytheon, a defense contracting company that makes billions of dollars selling weapons and military equipment to the United States and other countries, leading to what critics have called a conflict of interest.Biden formally unveiled the core team of health officials that will guide his response to the pandemic, appearing in Wilmington, Del., to announce an ambitious plan to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” in his first 100 days as president.The pledge represents at least some risk for Biden, as fulfilling it will require no hiccups in manufacturing or distributing the vaccine and a willingness by Americans to be vaccinated.As he spoke, Biden was flanked by members of his team, with some joining via video. They included Dr. Anthony Fauci, who will serve as Biden’s top medical adviser while continuing in his role as the country’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who will become the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.They both delivered speeches, as did Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith of Yale University Medical School, who will head a new “Covid-19 equity task force.” The virus’s effects have been disproportionately concentrated in communities of color, and Nunez-Smith spoke of “centering equity in our response to this pandemic, and not as a secondary concern, not as a box to check, but as a shared value.”Yesterday Britain became the first country to begin administering the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to civilians, the start of a mass vaccination campaign unlike any in recent memory. (And trust that Britain was very British about it, indeed: The second person to receive the vaccine was none other than William Shakespeare, 81, a Warwickshire man who had been hospitalized for several weeks after suffering a stroke.)The F.D.A. is expected to approve the vaccine this week, and Trump celebrated the milestone at a “vaccine summit” near the White House. He spoke to a packed, mostly masked crowd of industry officials and members of his administration, declaring the vaccine’s development a “monumental national achievement.”Asked why he hadn’t welcomed Biden’s transition team to the summit, Trump repeated his baseless claims that the election had been stolen, and said he still expected to serve another term.Photo of the dayCredit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesAt his “vaccine summit” yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order meant to prioritize the vaccine for Americans over people in other nations.How safe is it to bring students back to schools?A large component of Biden’s message to the country yesterday was his promise to ensure that safely returning children to school would be a “national priority.”Mayors across the country have wrestled with the question of how to reopen schools, and without a clear national framework, the process has been full of switchbacks and frustration — perhaps nowhere more haltingly and publicly than in New York City.Many parents are frustrated with the difficulties of juggling working from home and taking care of their children 24/7, but polls throughout the pandemic have shown that they favor caution over quickly sending students back to school. Teachers’ unions, too, have emphasized the need for low infection rates in order for schools to safely hold classes.Still, as experts have debated the benefits and harms of keeping students in remote learning for months on end, the consensus has shifted. New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, elected to bring elementary school and special-needs students back for in-person classes this week..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-vadvcb{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333 !important;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-2q573h{margin-bottom:15px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.5625rem;color:#333;}.css-1dvfdxo{margin:10px auto 0px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.5625rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1dvfdxo{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-121grtr{margin:0 auto 10px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1k4ccaz{background-color:white;margin:30px 0;padding:0 20px;max-width:510px;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1k4ccaz{padding:0;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;}.css-1k4ccaz strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1k4ccaz em{font-style:italic;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1k4ccaz{margin:40px auto;}}.css-1k4ccaz:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1k4ccaz a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:2px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-1k4ccaz a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:2px solid #ddd;}.css-1k4ccaz a:hover{border-bottom:none;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1nbniso{border-top:5px solid #121212;border-bottom:2px solid #121212;margin:0 auto;padding:5px 0 0;overflow:hidden;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1nbniso{border-top:2px solid #121212;border-bottom:none;}Schools During Coronavirus ›Back to SchoolUpdated Dec. 8, 2020The latest on how the pandemic is reshaping education.As New York City schools reopen, many families of color are choosing to keep students home. That disparity is raising alarms, given the shortcomings of remote learning.Elementary school students who were learning remotely in the spring fell significantly behind in math and reading, according to a new analysis.Some colleges are planning to bring back more students in the spring, saying they have learned how to manage the pandemic on campus. Not everyone is so confident.It’s not going to be a smooth process. The city’s regulations will cause entire classes, if not schools, to close abruptly in cases of infections, and the mayor has offered no guarantee of when he plans to bring back middle and high school students.But it reflects a growing medical consensus that it is safer for the youngest children to convene amid the pandemic, while there is a higher risk for older grade-school students.Schools reopened successfully in England in the summer without a spike in cases, a study published yesterday found. But England was not already seeing a surge in infections at that time, as the United States is now, and children aren’t the only people exposed when schools reopen. According to the British study, a majority of the school-related infections that were recorded were among staff members.Biden said yesterday that he would put a priority on ensuring that educators had access to the vaccine as part of his push to bring students back in person.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More