Bloomberg Opinion: Why Kids Should Go Straight Back to School

From Bloomberg Opinion:

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Relatively early in the Covid-19 pandemic, in March, I made the case against closing schools and later warned that doing so, even though it may be necessary, will cause many children a lifetime of harm. I was expecting that by now, two months on, we would know whether such drastic steps were justified epidemiologically. But one of the most frustrating aspects of SARS-CoV-2 is that it just doesn’t want to yield that data easily. Nonetheless, policymakers all over the world must now weigh the different risks and come to a decision.

The right one is to get the kids back into their classrooms. And not just partially, as our schools are doing here in Berlin, where children rotate in and out of their physical classes in a complex and staggered pattern for specified hours or days, depending on their grade. Ask parents or children, or at least those who have access to online learning, and most will say that this stop-go education is more stressful and less effective than schooling was during the total lockdown.