Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan did the right thing Monday when he barred local bureaucrats from imposing blanket school closures on their communities due to the risk of coronavirus transmission. He was reacting specifically to a Friday decision by health officials in Montgomery County, a wealthy, liberal suburb of Washington, D.C., to prevent all private schools from holding in-person instruction until at least Oct. 1.

Local schools and school systems in Maryland still have the authority to make reasoned decisions about when to reopen based on the disease. But it is quite another thing for the government to block private and parochial schools from reopening, especially when those schools have been willing to bend over backward in order to comply with federal and state guidelines for preventing transmission of the virus.