Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

I cannot keep up with the adverse impact the Trump administration is having on public education. Today’s NYTimes reportoffers yet another example of how various “redundant” and “unnecessary” government agencies and jobs impact policies that have an impact on public schools. Cecilia Kang and Michael Shear that Mr. Trump has intentionally left scores of positions unfilled in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Why? Here’s one of his advisor’s response, and what Mr. Trump has stated publicly since then:

“Eliminating the O.S.T.P. (or at least electing not to staff it until Congress can act) would not block the president from access to science and technology advice,” James Jay Carafano, who advised Mr. Trump’s transition team, wrote in a report issued last summer by the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Rather, it eliminates a formal office whose purpose is unclear and whose capabilities are largely redundant.”

Mr. Trump has echoed that sentiment, at least when it comes to government jobs over all.

Last month he responded to criticism about the high number of vacancies across his administration by telling Fox News that “a lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have.”

“You know, we have so many people in government, even me,” Mr. Trump said. “I look at some of the jobs and it’s people over people over people. I say, ‘What do all these people do?’ You don’t need all those jobs.”

Ms. Kang and Mr. Shear describe what some of the people in O.S.T.P. have done in the past… and the list of tasks and accomplishments is impressive:

Mr. Obama turned to the science office during crises like the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa; the 2011 nuclear spill in Fukushima, Japan; and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The staff of the science office developed the White House’s recommendations for regulation of commercial drones and driverless cars at the Transportation Department. Last year, the staff produced an attention-grabbing report that raised concerns about the threat that robots posed to employment and that advocated retraining Americans for higher-skilled jobs. The staff also put on the annual White House science fair.

In 2011, when lawmakers proposed an online piracy bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, internet architecture engineers on the team advised the president to veto the bill because of security and privacy issues it would create.

“The O.S.T.P. is the conduit for scientific perspective and scrutiny to the president and is a priority in White House decision making,” said Danny Weitzner, a former deputy chief technology officer in the Obama administration and now the director of internet policy research at M.I.T.

Under Mr. Obama, the science and technology office included 19 policy advisers in the environment and energy division, 14 in the national security and international affairs division, nine in the science division and 20 in the technology and innovation division.

“We are all sitting on the edge of our seats hoping nothing catastrophic happens in the world,” said Phil Larson, a former senior science and technology adviser to Mr. Obama. “But if it does, who is going to be advising him?”

Current White House officials declined to say how many people remained in each division. But four former officials who recently left the office said that a wave of departures scheduled for Friday could potentially reduce the number of people left to a handful, not counting about eight administrative staff members.

Based on the hasty and ill-informed legislation on internet privacy making its way through Congress and Mr. Trump’s reported desire to end net neutrality it seems Mr. Trump would benefit from advice from scientists with technological know-how. When asked about the delay in filling the key positions, an unnamed spokesman for the President indicated Mr. Trump “… is still reviewing candidates to be his chief science adviser, (and he) considers the science and technology office important and will soon have a new staff for it.”

Actions speak louder than words, though…. and the evidence is overwhelming. Mr. Trump’s inaction on filling slots combined with a budget that recommends cuts of “…$5.8 billion, or 18 percent, from the National Institutes of Health and $900 million, or about 20 percent, from the Energy Department’s Office of Science, which runs basic research at the national laboratories. The Environmental Protection Agency would be cut by 31 percent” show that he does not value science…. and that message will permeate into schools. As the President would say: “SAD!”