In mid-2020, I mused that if the COVID-19 pandemic ended up producing any silver linings, the most likely  bright spot would be its impact on government — so-called “public” — education. Throughout the previous spring, government schools had largely shut down in-person classes, switching to ad hoc and, it seems,  fairly lame, “remote learning.”

Some besieged, bedraggled parents held out hope for an autumn return to the previous normalcy. Others looked at the “remote learning” setup and decided they (perhaps in cooperation with other parents) could do a better job themselves — if not permanently, at least until the emergency was over.

By the fall 2020 semester, according to the US Census, the percentage of homeschooling households in America had doubled, from 5.4% of households to 11.1%.

That may have been just the beginning of a long-term trend.

Parents choose government schooling versus homeschooling or vice versa for many reasons, not all of them related to the overall better academic achievement (15-30% better performance on standardized tests, for example) homeschooling boasts.

One BIG reason is financial. In an age when nearly every parent works (regardless of whether the family is single- or multi-parent), homeschooling can mean significant loss of income. At least one parent has to be home to teach, rather than on an outside job.

The value proposition government schooling offers is: “Sure, we do a fairly crappy job of teaching your kids to read, write, and do arithmetic … but hey, who turns down free daycare?”

The pandemic threw a wrench into that value proposition. Suddenly, the kids weren’t disappearing on a yellow bus each morning, leaving Mom and/or Dad available to work a shift and earn a paycheck.

With “remote learning,” many parents had to either quit jobs or invest significant portions of their income in daycare. Some of them decided to turn “remote learning” lemons into homeschooling lemonade.

Others muddled through as best they could, waiting for that return to normalcy (or homeschooled in the interim with plans to send their kids back to government schools when possible). Because, after all, emergencies don’t last forever, right?

Now it’s January of 2022 and another problem with that financial equation, and with the government school value proposition, is rearing its ugly head: Reliability.

Parents who made the best of a bad situation while holding out hope that the government schools would get their act together Real Soon Now find themselves caught in a new cycle of alternating expectation and disappointment as we come up on “700 days to slow the spread.”

Will the government schools be in session this week? How about next week? And the week after that? Who knows?

Those parents can’t assure current or prospective employers that they’ll be available to work next week, or the week after, or the week after that.

They’re caught in the same “quit my job or fork over for daycare” trap they’ve spent the last two years in, with the added irritant of nearly daily uncertainty.

And many more of them are almost certainly eyeing the homeschooling exits.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

• “COVID-19 and the End of Government Schooling’s Main Value Proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/08/22
• “COVID-19 and the end of government schooling’s main value proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 01/11/22
• “COVID-19 and the end of public schooling’s main value proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elko, Nevada Daily, 01/11/22
• “COVID-19 And The End Of Government Schooling’s Main Value Proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/12/22
• “COVID-19 and the End of Government Schooling’s Main Value Proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Roundup, Montana Record Tribune & Winnett Times, 01/12/22
• “COVID-19 and the end of government schooling’s main value proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newton, Iowa Daily News, 01/15/22
• “COVID-19 and the End of Government Schooling’s Main Value Proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Columbia, South Carolina Panorama [web and print], 01/15/22
• “COVID-19 and the end of government schooling’s main value proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wahpeton, North Dakota Daily News, 01/19/22
• “COVID-19 and the end of government schooling’s main-value proposition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elizabethton, Tennessee Star, 01/25/22

It’s only early January, and already this 2022 thing is obviously not working out. With the “omicron variant” of COVID-19 upon us, politicians and public health authorities are already off on their next round of COVID-19 Hokey Pokey:

You put your school closures in. You pull your mask mandates out. You put your rising case numbers in, and you shake them all about. You do the COVID-19 Hokey Pokey and you order people around. That’s what it’s all about.

A successful COVID-19 Hokey Pokey this time around requires ignoring the fact that, even allowing for a lag between case numbers and deaths, the latter aren’t increasing.

From December 1 thru  December 30, 2021, daily reported cases of COVID-19 (according to Worldometer’s COVID-19 dashboard) in the United States rose from 123,430 to 450,298. During the same period, daily reported COVID-19 deaths fell from 1,697 to 1,584.

Yes, all of those numbers are bad things. But they’re not WORSE things than the pre-omicron COVID-19 landscape. They’re BETTER things. If we “trust the science,” or at least the data, here’s what it’s telling us: Omicron is the next evolutionary step along COVID-19’s path from deadly pandemic to endemic inconvenience.

The data may change. But, despite a month of smug warnings from the usual suspects — just wait for that lag, COVID-19 is going to GET YOU unless you DO AS YOU’RE TOLD! —  it hasn’t yet. Unless it does, President Joe Biden’s prediction of “a winter of severe illness and death” isn’t in the cards.

Here’s the problem:

As the 20 years since the 9/11 attacks have shown us, many Americans are willing to embrace authoritarian rule for as long as politicians are willing and able to curry abject fear — even long after such fear has proven itself unjustified.

With COVID-19, many Americans have graduated from that willingness to, well, eagerness.

They’ve spent the last two years hanging on every pronouncement as to what (and who) they should fear, waiting with bated breath and unconcealed glee for the order to hide under the bed again.

And, evidence or not, they’re downright insistent that we must all spend another year cowering in terror with them.

It seems to me that this is one of those rare cases where Congress might prove itself useful. When the House convenes its second session of the 117th Congress on January 10, it should promptly introduce and pass the Pandemic Saving Time Act of 2022. The Senate should immediately follow suit and get the bill to President Biden for his signature, stat.

Under the Pandemic Saving Time Act, at 2am on Saturday, January 15, all Americans will roll their calendars forward one year to January 15, 2023.

We can all pretend we spent another year obsessing over COVID-19, satisfying the eager beavers.

But we won’t have to actually do so, satisfying those of us who are sick of the COVID-19 Hokey Pokey.

The politicians and bureaucrats can make up stories about how they took the “tough” and “necessary” measures, but we won’t suffer another year of scurrying to comply with their bizarre, ever-shifting dictates.

Everybody wins!

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Tennessee Tribune
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/02/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Batesville, Mississippi Panolian, 01/03/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Anchorage, Alaska Press, 01/03/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 01/03/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Chester County, Pennsylvania Daily Local News, 01/04/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pottstown, Pennsylvania Mercury, 01/04/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Trenton, New Jersey Trentonian, 01/04/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Forest Hills / Rego Park, New York Times [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens, New York Ledger [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens, New York Examiner [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Greenpoint, New York Star [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Long Island City / Astoria, New York Journal [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, New York City Leader / Observer [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Brooklyn, New York Downtown Star [web and print], 01/05/22
• “A Modest Proposal – Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Glasgow, Montana Courier, 01/05/22
• “A modest proposal: Pandemic saving time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Lake Havasu City, Arizona News-Herald, 01/07/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/07/22
• “A modest proposal: Pandemic saving time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sidney, Montana Herald, 01/08/22
• “COVID-19 Hokey Pokey,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times and Democrat, 01/09/22
• “A Modest Proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Columbia, South Carolina Panorama [web and print], 01/15/22
• “A modest proposal: Pandemic Saving Time,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dillon, Montana Tribune [web and print], 01/22/22

In mid-December, US Senate Democrats cried “uncle,” at least temporarily, pulling President Biden’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” agenda out from under the Christmas Tree. If the bill  makes it to the Senate floor for an up or down vote, it won’t be this year.

I’m a big fan of gridlock, and not a fan at all of Biden’s Big Basket of Boondoggles, so I can’t say I’m terribly unhappy about this. Thanks, Joe Manchin!

On the other hand, it seems to me that Democrats are missing a chance to save themselves a savage beating in next November’s midterms. Which, as much as I dislike the Republicans too, might not be a bad thing from the “gridlock is good” standpoint, but let’s look at it as a nuts-and-bolts problem.

Build Back Better is what’s commonly called an “omnibus” bill. Put simply, Democrats threw in the kitchen sink and plunked down 2,000+ pages of everything any Democrat might want.

The point of an omnibus bill is that it lets the members of the majority party bring pressure on each other to get unanimity.

Congresswoman X wants, say, a child tax credit, but doesn’t want to expand Medicare to cover hearing aids (both of these are in Build Back Better).

Congressman Y wants the hearing aids but not the child tax credit.

If both things go in the omnibus bill, Congresswoman X and Congressman Y  must both support what they don’t want to get what they do.

But that pressure can run in both directions. If Congresswoman X hates the hearing aid provision so much that she’ll give up the child tax credit to avoid supporting it (and Congressman Y vice versa), the bill dies.

Democrats are looking at two plausible plays for support next year.

One is to get Build Back Better passed so that they can brag on how much they got done, and ask voters to expand their mandate.

The other is to blame those darn Republican obstructionists (or Joe Manchin) for the fact that they got nothing done, and ask voters to give them more seats. That approach frankly doesn’t work too often or well.

There is, however, a third option.

There are probably a few reasonably popular — even “bipartisan” — things in Build Back Better. Why not break these popular items out into single-issue bills that can actually pass? I don’t support the child tax credit, but I bet some Republican votes could be found for some version of it.

There’s a good argument to be made that this is how Congress should handle EVERYTHING. “One subject per bill” would substantially reduce gridlock.

It would also give congressional Democrats a third, better campaign pitch for midterm voters: “We got some stuff you like DONE — reward us!”

If Democrats step off the omnibus and walk those individual bills up Capitol Hill, they might staunch their bleeding campaign wounds and do reasonably well next November.  That might or might not be good for the country, but it would be good for them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY