Free Republic

David Zweig is a novelist and journalist who lives near New York City and was a early skeptic of Covid lockdowns and school closings. (In other words, he’s me, but nicer.) Somehow, Zweig didn’t get canceled. In 2020 he became one of only a few legacy media writers to push for school reopenings. Now he has a new book out: An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions. It demolishes the false narrative that public health bureaucrats and teachers’ unions were just doing their best at the time with the information they had. I...

Hello Covid, my old friend I can't believe you're back again...

A leftover from the weekend via the New York Post. There’s nothing unusual about special interests lobbying the federal government to try to influence policy, of course. But there’s cause for squeamishness when (a) it’s the “scientific” branch of the government responsible for pandemic guidance that’s being pressured and (b) the special interest in question happens to be a hugely generous benefactor of the party in power. The Post has documented two changes to CDC guidance that were made at the behest of the American Federation of Teachers, but that’s only because there are actual documents — emails — to...

When the state announced its own version of lockdowns and face mask mandates last spring, Peaster briefly experimented with remote learning. But a survey of parents and students showed that a majority didn’t like it. When it came time for classes to start in August, Peaster simply ignored most of the mandates. They continued their classes as usual. For both teachers and students alike, if you wanted to wear a mask you were free to do so. If not, you didn’t. It was as simple as that. They didn’t move the student’s desks any further apart. Nobody was learning “remotely”...

“The status quo — of police killing Black people, of armed white nationalists killing demonstrators, of millions sick and increasingly desperate — is clearly unjust, and it cannot continue,” says the statement from several branches of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Service Employees International Union, and affiliates of the National Education Association...The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, which represents several hundred workiers at more than 25 civil rights groups and think tank organizations, told the AP it signed onto the union statement...

Today I went to Mass, the first time since I heard my pastor compare Pope Francis to the prophet Amos, favorably. Today was also the day the hectoring began for "Beyond Sunday", the latest rebrand of the Archdiocesan Expansion Fund. Those of us who remember the pre-1968 Church might recall a vibrant Catholic presence in the black neighborhoods of North St. Louis. A sizable minority were Roman Catholic, attracted by the ability to send their children to Corpus Christi, Mercy, DeAndreis, Laboure, or even McBride, St. Marks or Rosati-Kain high schools, keeping them out of the street life at a...

Chicago Public School officials say they’re canceling classes ahead of Monday’s bitter cold temperatures, after first saying they would be open. The reversal comes after withering criticism from the Chicago Teachers Union, though officials say they made the decision after (they) “evaluated the situation again.” …

The city of Chicago has begun informing teachers, principals and local officials about which public schools it intends to close under a contentious plan that opponents say will disproportionately affect minority students in the nation’s third largest school district, teachers said Thursday. … The pending closures, which are expected to fall far short of 129, have been the subject of highly charged community meetings all over the city. Critics say that, among other things, the closures will threaten the safety of students who may have to cross gang boundaries if their schools are closed and that they will cause major...

TORONTO, April 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Plummeting birth rates have resulted in the closure of over 300 schools in Ontario and half of the province's school boards have 90,000 fewer students than they did six years ago. 300 schools are slated to be closed in the province simply because there are not enough children to go into them according to a report by People for Education. "Much of the funding that school boards receive is based on numbers of students," the report said. "As a result, fewer students equals less funding, fewer programs and, in many cases, closing schools." The...

When the San Francisco school board votes Thursday on school closures and mergers, its decisions will almost certainly affect African American students far out of proportion to their representation in the city's public school district. Many of the affected schools, with names including Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, are located in heavily African American neighborhoods, including the Western Addition and Bayview-Hunters Point, and serve by far more black children than any other racial group. Of the 3,204 students affected by the changes, 30 percent will be African American, according to school district figures. At those schools that face outright closure,...

BROOKLYN DIOCESE TO SHUT 26 SCHOOLS February 10, 2005 -- Twenty-six Catholic elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens will close after the school year — forcing more than 4,100 youngsters to find new schools before September, the Diocese of Brooklyn said yesterday. The largest blood-letting in diocese history — announced on Ash Wednesday — comes less than four months after The Post first reported that as many as 25 parish schools were facing the closing bell because of dwindling enrollment. The affected schools, 17 in Brooklyn and nine in Queens, represent more than one in six schools in the diocese.