Parents of 51 million school-age children in the U.S. are facing an agonizing choice — whether to risk exposing their children to the coronavirus in public school classrooms this fall, or to sacrifice their children’s intellectual, social and emotional development by keeping them home for “online learning” via the web, which even before the pandemic was judged not very effective.

To make the choice even more difficult, President Trump and his education secretary, billionaire Betsy DeVos, have threatened to withhold federal funds from any school that does not open its classrooms fully in the fall. Both Trump and DeVos insist face-to-face teaching is perfectly safe, which health scientists say is not true.

Read more at Truthout.