There's a classic though illegitimate move in persuasive writing, and it is this: if you want to discredit an idea, associate it with an obviously bad idea. That's what's happening in this article. The obviously bad idea is 'Zoom in a room,' where students "sit in a classroom, masked and socially distanced, with Chromebooks... while the teacher instructs remotely from home." The idea being discredited by association is the four-day school week. There's nothing inherently bad in this idea, especially if it is joined with a four-day work week generally. And support for it isn't based on hygiene theatre or any such thing, it's based on the idea that maybe we don't want to spend most of our lives in an institution, either as students or workers.
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