'Back to school' focus of reopening debate in the US

Pandemic politics showed up in the classroom Wednesday, with President Donald Trump threatening to cut funding to schools that don't reopen this fall, while New York City schools announced a hybrid reopening.

And Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, seeking to block a measure that would bar foreign students from remaining in the US if their universities move all courses online due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The Ivy League, a sports conference of which Harvard is a member, announced that all its varsity sports programs will not be active until January, making it the first NCAA Division I conference to say it will not play football this fall.

Also, the US passed the 3 million mark for novel coronavirus cases on Wednesday as the death toll climbed to more than 131,000.

Dr Deborah Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, on Wednesday suggested that states with rising infection rates return to the first stage of their reopenings.

She said she was "asking the American people in those counties and in those states to not only use those face coverings, not going to bars, not going to indoor dining, but really not gathering in homes either. And decreasing those gatherings back down to our phase one recommendation, which was 10 or less."

Texas once again set a daily record for cases of coronavirus infection, with 10,028 reported Tuesday as officials said hospitals are reaching capacity.

In California, the state's Department of Public Health reported that two-thirds of the state's new coronavirus cases are in the 18-49 age group.

In Arizona, 25 percent of coronavirus tests are coming back positive, the highest percentage in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University.

"When there were 15 cases, the President said it wouldn't spread any farther. We just hit our 3 millionth case," Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted. "We're paying for his failure."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to issue new guidelines for reopening schools, Vice-President Mike Pence said Wednesday after the president criticized the agency's recommendations as expensive and impractical.

Trump also accused Democrats of wanting to keep schools shut for political reasons and threatened to cut federal funding to schools that do not reopen.

"I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!" Trump said on Twitter.

A White House spokeswoman said the CDC was not pressured to change the guidelines.

Pence said the CDC next week will issue a "new set of tools ... to give more clarity on the guidance going forward".

CDC Director Robert Redfield stressed that agency guidelines were not requirements.

"It would be personally very disappointing to me, and I know my agency, if we saw that individuals were using these guidelines as a rationale for not reopening our schools," Redfield said.

The CDC's recommendations include testing for the virus, dividing students into small groups, serving packaged lunches in classrooms instead of cafeterias, and minimizing sharing of school supplies.

It also has advised that seats be spaced at least 6 feet apart and that sneeze guards and partitions be installed when social distancing is not possible.

"Ultimately, it's not a matter of if schools should reopen, it's simply a matter of how. They must fully open," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said.

"In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS," Trump said on Twitter. "The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!"

States are responsible for primary and secondary education under the Constitution, but the federal government provides supplementary funding, including through congressional appropriations. Democrats control the House of Representatives, so an attempt to cut school funding likely would face opposition.

However, The New York Times reported Wednesday that "Trump's funding threat carries real weight. When it passed its $2 trillion stimulus law, Congress gave enormous latitude to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to decide how to parcel out tens of millions of dollars in relief to school districts."

DeVos said that just 1 percent of the $13.5 billion in stimulus money allocated to K-12 school districts had been claimed, the Times reported.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the federal government has no authority on schools, and that the state will announce its reopening plan in the first week of August.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he planned for schools to reopen in the fall but reserved the right to "tweak that if it means saving lives." Murphy also announced Wednesday that masks will be required outdoors when social distancing isn't possible.

Murphy said that "unfortunately, we have been seeing a backslide in compliance. The weather has gotten warmer, and not surprisingly as a result, our rate of infection has similarly crept up."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday unveiled a plan for reopening the country's largest school system in September with a "blended learning" schedule that would have students alternating between classrooms and their homes.

Under the plan, which requires state approval, 1.1 million public school students would spend two days at school and three in home instruction, and then reverse the sequence the next week.

"Blended learning simply means at some points in the week you're learning in the classroom, at other points in the week you're learning remotely," de Blasio said at a briefing.

"This blended model, this kind of split schedule model, is what we can do under current conditions," he said. "And then let's hope and pray science helps us out with a vaccine, with a cure or treatment."

De Blasio said that a recent survey of 400,000 parents showed that 75 percent favored the reopening of school buildings.

Karol Markowicz, in an opinion column for the New York Post, wrote: "The survey sent to parents had three options and none of them was 'Reopen schools full-time'. The mayor had to know a majority of parents would have picked that."

Markowicz recounted a story of "an irate mom of a Brooklyn Tech student" describing how six of her son's seven teachers skipped live instruction. "If one of New York's finest high schools can't get it right, who can?"

Markowicz wrote that "there is no medical difference between sending kids to school three days per week or five. … Part-time school will only make things more difficult for parents, teachers and — remember them? — kids."

"What we WON'T do is ignore the science and recklessly charge ahead like our president," de Blasio said. "We will do it the right way."

The Post writer also cited a report in the Hartford Courant last week that said 16,000 New Yorkers have left the state for suburban Connecticut since March, according to the US Postal Service".

Connecticut plans to open schools full time in the fall.

Reuters contributed to this story.