When teachers unions declare that they are being “sent to the slaughter” by being told to go to school (and when politicians funded and endorsed by these teachers unions acquiesce, to the dismay of parents), it’s a safe bet that school closures are not based on science, but on politics and hysteria.

Right now, millions of students and their parents are suffering because their children have to go to school on Zoom. Remote schooling isn’t homeschooling, and it isn’t almost like real schooling. It is a pale imitation of in-person schooling. Millions of children these days are expected to spend 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. mostly staring at a screen, without friends and without in-person interaction with teachers. Hundreds of thousands are skipping out on much of this.