U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Thursday spoke to National Public Radio’s Mary Louise Kelly to discuss efforts to ramp up COVID-19 testing to allow students to go back to school this fall and his work as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senator Alexander said, “I think any principal, any chancellor of a university can say, ‘We will take testing. We'll take pneumonia shots. We'll try to keep people as separate as possible. We'll keep administrative staff at home. We'll develop a strategy for going back to school and to college that is safe,. That may take staggered weeks of schooling, and they'll take more flexible days. A number of changes. But I think the question is not do we go, I think it's how we go.
“There are a hundred thousand public schools—50 million children—there are 6,000 colleges—20 million students. We have to think about the impact on those children of not going to school for a year. I think part of our leadership responsibility is to not just throw up our hands and say, ‘No, we can't do it.’ It’s to say, ‘We're going to make every effort to do it safely.’ A pediatrician on your program this morning talked about the damage that could be caused to children if they have to miss a whole year of school.
“I think it's unnecessary to do that, in most cases. It will have to be watched carefully, and it'll vary by school. New York City may be different than Nashville. Maryville, where I'm from, may be different than Sacramento."
Senator Alexander served as the governor of Tennessee, the U.S. Secretary of Education for President George H.W. Bush and the president of the University of Tennessee.
The full interview will air Thursday on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Listeners can go to www.npr.org/listen to find the station serving their area. Click here for a transcript of the full interview.