Remember when Joe Biden said that within the first 100 days of his administration, he wanted schools open?

Since his inauguration, we have gotten nothing but teachers’ unions standing fast against ever going back, a new CDC director who got slapped back by the White House press secretary, and the setting of the lowest bar imaginable – one day a week – for school reopening until the administration figured out that no one was buying that.

On Friday, the CDC released yet another update to their school opening guidelines. While the document still maintains, as the new CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, that teachers don’t have to be vaccinated in order to be back in classrooms teaching, it now introduces an entirely new convoluted “community spread” assessment criteria that nearly no area in the country – including those places with schools currently open – is meeting.

I’d like to illustrate the absurdity of the new CDC guidelines.

Here is how the country looks based on the new color-codes zones (map and bar chart).

66.4% already offer in-person (40.8 5d/wk, 25.6% hybrid), yet CDC tells us only 9% should be open at all WITH all 5 mitigations. pic.twitter.com/p84X3PuQuc

— Hold2 (@Hold2LLC) February 14, 2021

And not only that, among the guidelines being set forth, yet again, is the call for social distancing at six feet apart, something which is going to essentially hamstring classroom numbers.

The CDC’s “science-based reopening” guidance includes five key considerations, presented in order of emphasis: 1) mask-wearing, 2) social distancing, 3) handwashing, 4) cleaning, and 5) contact tracing. Director Rochelle Walensky in a conference call emphasized “prioritizing the first two,” which means that in every school—including ones that are already open, using less stringent standards—there should be student distancing of “at least six feet,” accomplished if need be by “cohorting or podding of students.”

Public sector unions have long enjoyed the job-creating utility of the ratio—patients per nurse, kids per teacher, prisoner per guard, and so on. The CDC, whose scientific pronouncements about schools have twice been trimmed back by the administration’s political appointees, has delivered to teachers unions one of the cleverest ratios yet.”

By suggesting that desks be six feet apart instead of three, even as infections and hospitalizations continue to recede, this scientific body has openly disregarded science and smoothed the way for the government to hire more staff into a system hemorrhaging students. Unless this guidance is revoked, and soon, public schools in big cities likely will not be open full time even by September 2021. For many families, perhaps including my own, the prospect of having three consecutive school years disfigured by the pandemic response will be the final straw.”

Remember when the left screamed that Trump would pressure the CDC into doing the political thing instead of the scientific thing? And how Biden preached about “following the science” and then his administration completely undercut his own chosen CDC director? Yeah, even Jake Tapper, when interviewing Dr. Walensky this morning on CNN, could not get her pinned down on how these rules would get schools open.

CNN host Jake Tapper pushed back on Walensky at the end of her interview Sunday, pointing out that the stringent guidelines mean that schools could likely never fully reopen even though evidence weighs in favor of schools being safe.”

“I have to say, I feel a little dispirited after this conversation,” Tapper told Walensky, “because I had high hopes that schools would be able to resume in-person learning because so many scientists and health officials, including you and Dr. Fauci and others, have been talking about the science supports opening the schools as much as possible.”

“I know that teachers are very concerned, and I know the teachers unions have been pushing back on this, but it sounds to me like you’re asking for one hundred percent mask compliance and a number of measures that we’re never going to be able to achieve, and that makes me feel like, boy, the schools are never going to reopen until everybody’s vaccinated.”

And there we have the endgame. The teachers’ unions, who have bought and paid for the Democrat party which now holds the Congress and the presidency, have now bent the science to their will. The criteria has been set too high, and now we know why Jen Psaki originally set the bar so freaking low. And what do the teachers’ unions want? What has the Biden administration rolled over to give them? MONEY. And they will use “the science” to do it.

This is incredibly important.

When Democrats blocked $100 BILLION for schools to reopen in the fall, Dr. Fauci said NOTHING.

Now that Democrats are in charge, and there's still $60B for schools to use, he's saying this? Absolutely infuriating. https://t.co/Dgi8xBh8Qv

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 14, 2021

With impeachment over, Republicans have no excuse. They MUST start speaking up at every opportunity to advocate for school reopening as a necessity, and if they don’t, they will have failed to seize upon the single greatest bipartisan issue in existence at the moment. If the media is going to scream about “Republicans pouncing,” then DO IT with maximum effectiveness. Make the Democrats OWN THIS SHIT. Parents are losing hope and the ones who are paying the price are the children who are left behind in the grip of a bloated, bureaucratic system that has proved that they can’t educate. And Democrats know this, and are beginning to speak up about what damage this will do to them.

I am begging my fellow Democrats:

Watch this video.

If Democrats don’t get right on school openings, you can get used to seeing this face giving this message for the next 12 years.

He’s completely right. And it’s poison for Democratic electoral chances. https://t.co/xUYZjyiKhH

— Zac Bissonnette (@ZacBissonnette) February 13, 2021

They should worry. The left, busy screaming about “equity” and renaming schools instead of opening them, has proved what matters most to them, and it isn’t the education of children. They expect families to keep blindly making the sacrifice of years in order for them to keep power. And it will be YEARS. We are quickly approaching a full year of most public schools being closed or on a hybrid schedule at best. Those that have been left behind far outnumber those who have been able to go back to in-person school. And the CDC looks to have just slammed the door shut on any chance of getting back to any sense of normalcy this year, or even next fall.

Listen up, Republicans – the future hinges on the present. Speak up NOW for schools, students, and parents – or be prepared to lose in every election cycle in the future.

Featured image via Wokandapix on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license