California’s test scores are finally out, and they represent a damning repudiation of all the California Democrats who let their COVID fanaticism close schools. This is proof that all involved, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), should never be allowed near political power again.
According to an analysis of the state’s Smarter Balanced standardized test scores, eighth graders in California have math scores “in line with the knowledge and skills of fifth graders.” Math scores show that students were falling behind year after year before the pandemic, starting in third grade. Then came the pandemic, and progress completely froze. Overall, eighth graders showed the same proficiency in 2021 testing as they had two years earlier, when they were still sixth graders a mere grade level behind where they were supposed to be.
NOW, IN CALIFORNIA, YOU CAN PROBABLY RAP ABOUT CRIME WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT
This is the same California that was given an award for “state innovation” by the Education Commission of the States earlier this year. As it turns out, the state is a pioneer in failing to teach its students anything useful at all over a period of two years.
Even before the pandemic, California was already one of the worst-performing states in education — for years a bottom-dweller on the list of math and reading scores. That record of failure is bad enough, but the panic that led to unjustifiable school shutdowns has done lasting damage to children’s education in the Golden State.
Everyone involved in imposing and supporting school lockdowns should be cast out of public life entirely. That is true for members of local school boards and city officials, all the way up to the governor’s mansion. Newsom has helped destroy the state in several ways, but none will be more unforgivable in the future than this. He set children back forever while pretending he was the true prophet of “science.” And even he did not really believe anything he was saying about COVID.
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Newsom, with his terribly disguised ambitions, now wants to be president. The education policies that have made California America’s worst in education would follow him there, as would the terrible judgment that encouraged him to shut down schools to satisfy the whims of teachers unions. Had Newsom been president during the pandemic, he would have set back every student in the country even worse. If that is not disqualifying for public office, what possibly could be?
In a just world, Newsom and other anti-science Democrats would be cast out of office immediately. Sadly, too many California voters have embraced the decay of single-party rule, even at the expense of their children and their own future.
