As many parents all around the U.S. have spoken out in their local school board meetings about the negative effects and uselessness of force-masking their children in school (a very contentious topic with angry parents on both sides of the argument), the ubiquitous video of these events found online tends to demonstrate an absolute disregard and disdain that school boards have for parents, their opinions, and arguably, the children themselves. Why is that? Probably too many reasons to detail here, but we’ll look at one area of financial incentives for that behavior.
Regarding viral risks and mitigation strategies, the cost/benefit ratios, negative and adverse effects, case and death numbers by age group, etc. those can be discussed elsewhere. As I have been digging into the seemingly unlimited U.S. government’s financial incentives for COVID compliances across society and economy, I came across the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) Act and its subsequent supplements. As of January 2022, every state has submitted a plan (and all have been approved) to access the current allotment of $190 BILLION in additional taxpayer funding for their compliance. (Those plans, details and dollars allotted by state, can be found on the U.S. Department of Education’s corresponding website.)
Not surprisingly, this money comes with a series of strings attached. One of those requirements is that schools follow CDC guidelines for masking of all children, age 2 through 12th grade. (The highly flawed CDC “studies” that show any masking benefit for viral transmission or illness can be described in multiple places, but is very well done by Dr. Vinay Prasad MD, MPH who is “a practicing hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco” per his bio. Check out his quick YouTube explanation on the topic – while it remains uncancelled – and his substack article.)
With roughly 49M kids enrolled in U.S. schools (per the National Center for Education Statistics), that $190B in additional ESSER funding works out to over $3,800 per masked child. Masking your kid and putting up with your complaints are very small prices for schools to pay in order to access that money. Your parental preferences do not carry that kind of weight. There is no option for you to withhold your local school or federal taxes in protest. That money is theirs regardless, and you’ll have to comply with their mandates, curriculum and treatments unless you can afford to take your kid to a like-minded private school, or to home school them. Your opinion is nothing but a nuisance to the people you fund, who impact your child for 8 hours a day, most days of the year.
Out of curiosity, I reviewed the ESSER plan for my current state of residence, Pennsylvania. Masking is mentioned throughout the document, and the state has received over $5B in distributions from this particular fund to date. So, it’s unlikely that parental complaints are going to counterbalance that weight.
This issue was introduced to me by an interview I came across while researching another blog post idea: the unintended consequences and economic distortions of the COVID financial incentives to the healthcare workforce – which has been severely disrupted with the wash of dollars flowing into health care organizations, allowing an escalating bidding war between them for their beaten down and exhausted staff, after years of crushing, COVID working conditions and resented mandates. This has resulted in staffing shortages all across the country. If I were a nurse and could make $4,000 per week as a traveler (the number I was quoted from a nurse at my current hospital yesterday), especially if I were even slightly disgruntled and exhausted, I would give that SERIOUS consideration.
Back to the school masking topic. The article embedded the aforementioned interview by The Highwire’s Del Bigtree with Tennessee Liberty Network’s AJ DePriest. (I’d love to reference a Legacy Media discussion of such topics, but we all know that these points would be labelled as misinformation, dissidence or conspiracy by the likes of all of the alphabet networks.) I wasn’t familiar with any of the interview’s entities or persons, but watching from the 11 minute mark, Ms. DePriest mentions sufficient points of reference and explanation to begin to piece evidences together, which I’ve done this morning. (“Thank you!” to her for researching and reporting on this topic.)
Her takeaway is that parents at school board meetings need to stop trying to reason with those board members. Rather, they should bring these evidences to the meetings and demand funding transparency, exposure of conflicts of interest, and explanations for policies in order to “unmask” these distorted incentive structures that negatively impact their children.
As the Peter G. Peterson Foundation tabulates, there is roughly $4.2 TRILLION in U.S. COVID funding sloshing its way through society and the economy right now. Imagine how each aspect of our lives might be impacted by the unintended(?) consequences and distortions of such largess. We might consider seeking similar transparency and conflict disclosures from every institution and organization that touches us.
Addendum, Feb 12th
A long-time social media friend asked me: “What about all the schools that don’t have mask mandates? Are they forfeiting the money?”
My response: “That’s a good question! Maybe they got it and moved on. It looks like the last supplement to the fund was in March of 2021. Or, I wonder if the CDC masking rules were different earlier on. I’ll be interested to see what kind of feedback comes in on that topic.
“Here’s the actual application packet/guidance. – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/04/ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Template-04-20-2021_130PM.pdf – Pg 7, Table B1 requests the state to address the Universal and Correct Wearing of Masks. I looked at Florida’s application ( – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/12/FL-ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Final_Redacted.pdf – ), which specifically includes Gov Ron DeSantis’s executive order allowing parents to unmask their children. That state’s plan was accepted, but the topic was clearly addressed. Maybe the federal government didn’t want to pursue some of these governor level exemptions. Unclear!
“The PA application (linked in my blog above), for example, clearly states that masking will follow CDC guidelines, so it may be assumed by the state and local education agencies that their funding is dependent on that compliance.”
I just started looking at this topic yesterday and cannot claim to grasp the eventual compliances or outcomes of all of the enticements, inducements and financial coercions. Clearly, they have effects – as do all economic, political and social interventions. My end message would be to have caution with such interventionism and to be alert to the subsequent (often unseen) consequences and impacts around us. It is always helpful to ask “qui bono?” – who benefits? – when assessing situations that are difficult to understand. (Check out the great essay by Frederic Bastiat, That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, written in 1850… and timeless.)
There is definitely a financial inducement for universal masking of kids in schools, but there are many other reasons it has been pushed, as well. Much of it seems politically motivated and inordinately fear-driven, in my opinion, rather than out of an honest concern to keep children healthy… noting that healthy children without comorbidities are in the lowest possible risk stratification for the pandemic virus.
Just as a review, I’ll include a graphic from the CDC this morning that shows cumulative COVID-associated hospitalizations from the inception of the pandemic (does that mean persons hospitalized because of COVID pneumonia, or incidentally positive by test on admission for an unassociated reason?… can’t know, that data isn’t collected) by week, with age distribution percentages. Kids 17 and under tend to make up less than 4% of the hospitalized, and those will tend to be kids with other significant health issues – perhaps not even in the general population of schools.
Here’s another CDC table screenshot from today which shows that of all the U.S. pandemic deaths to date with an associated COVID label, 795 of those 898,699 deaths were in the age group of 0-17. Doing that calculation: 795/898699 x 100 = 0.088 percent of the COVID mortality numbers were school-age kids.
What national intervention measures should be justified to chase those 795 deaths, which while certainly tragic, pale in comparison to other causes of death in that age group, like the 4,000 or so motor vehicle deaths per year? Should we also prohibit travel to keep the kids safe? The public health apparatus, aided by media-generated fear, has suffered a complete divorce from the concept of risk/benefit analysis. Glenn Greenwald has a great article and video on this failure from August of 2021.
Lend our society’s accepted practices a skeptical eye. Ask some questions. Make sure what we participate in carries benefit over costs. Stay safe out there, friends.
I had a social media friend ask: “What about all the schools that don’t have mask mandates? Are they forfeiting the money?”
My response: “That’s a good question! Maybe they got it and moved on. It looks like the last supplement to the fund was in March of 2021. Or, I wonder if the CDC masking rules were different earlier on. I’ll be interested to see what kind of feedback comes in on that topic.
“Here’s the actual application packet/guidance. – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/04/ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Template-04-20-2021_130PM.pdf – Pg 7, Table B1 requests the state to address the Universal and Correct Wearing of Masks. I looked at Florida’s application ( – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/12/FL-ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Final_Redacted.pdf – ), which specifically includes Gov Ron DeSantis’s executive order allowing parents to unmask their children. That state’s plan was accepted, but the topic was clearly addressed. Maybe the federal government didn’t want to pursue some of these governor level exemptions. Unclear!
“The PA application (linked in my blog above), for example, clearly states that masking will follow CDC guidelines, so it may be assumed by the state and local education agencies that their funding is dependent on that compliance.”