Vice President Mike Pence admits that he isn’t an expert on elementary education, but he knows somebody who is.
And in arguing for most schools to reopen for the fall term, he cited that expert of 35 years of teaching, his wife, Karen Pence.
“She says that kids need to be with their friends,” the vice president and former Indiana governor said in Florida Monday. “They need to be learning social skills,” he added.
In making the administration’s latest pitch for schools to reopen where feasible, Pence did touch on the areas where is an expert, data on the coronavirus as head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and state programs available to parents.
LIVE: Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Ron DeSantis are speaking to the public at the University of Miami after holding a COVID-19 roundtable. https://t.co/TwAJRXrHUx
— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) July 27, 2020
“In studying this data in this country and around the world, one thing we know for sure: And that is the risk of the coronavirus to healthy kids is very low,” the vice president said after a tour of the University of Miami where virus vaccine tests are being conducted.
“The other thing we know for sure is that there are real costs to children for not being in the classroom,” he added.
Children have “fallen back academically,” he said, but they are also missing out on special services.
“As a former governor, I know that the services that our kids receive, whether it is special needs kids, whether it is children with learning disabilities, whether it be the nutrition services, supplementing meals for underprivileged children, those are provided by our schools. And so, we don’t want our kids to fall behind academically but we also don’t want our kids to fall behind with all of the other aspects of education. And not the lead of which is the value of socialization,” said Pence.
He promised that the administration will push for approval of some $105 billion for schools, with $70 billion set aside for K-12.
And he pledged to focus on concerns of teachers and other staff who have expressed concerns about reopening. “Safely reopening our schools should be a priority for every American,” said Pence.
