There has still been little to no accountability for the unnecessary school closures during the pandemic that set children back quite drastically.
The New York Times ran through the data once again and found everything that many of us have been arguing for years to be true. Math scores between third and eighth grade dropped more for students who spent 50% or more of their schooling in remote “learning” or hybrid schooling compared to those who spent less. Students fell behind more the longer their schools were closed. Poor students saw bigger score drops and more setbacks than students from wealthier families.
And, of course, “Closing schools did not appear to significantly slow Covid’s spread.” The New York Times reached exactly the same conclusion that many Republican governors, and conservative writers at this outlet and others, reached: It was “largely unknown” whether school reopenings were safe when the pandemic started in the spring of 2020, but it was entirely clear by the fall that children belonged in school.
Again, as aggravating as it is, we knew all of this very early on. The American Academy of Pediatrics said in the summer of 2020 that the goal of school policies should be getting children back in school. We knew by the time the fall semester started that children were not at risk of the virus and that younger, otherwise healthy teachers weren’t either. By the spring 2021 semester, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said the data “does not suggest teachers need to be vaccinated” to return to classrooms before CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was pressured into walking that back.
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Despite all of this being clear, lockdown proponents have been elevated within the CDC. There has been no reckoning for the fact that teachers unions were in contact with the CDC and influencing school recommendations. In fact, the American Federation of Teachers remains a key Democratic surrogate with close ties to the Biden administration. Teachers unions, which were behind the push to shut students out of school because of “safety,” continue to flex their influence on the schools they hold hostage.
From President Joe Biden on down, lockdown proponents and enablers got off relatively scot-free from consequences for destructive school closures, even as each passing day makes it clear that there were no redeeming qualities to those closures. School closures failed children, and the people behind them have been able to keep ducking the consequences, a trend that will continue so long as Biden remains president and teachers unions have the CDC’s ear.
