Who could have possibly seen this coming? Certainly not esteemed doctors like Anthony Fauci who, on more than one occasion, said: “kids are resilient”
The question above is tongue-in-cheek since every parent and well-meaning educator saw this trainwreck happening over the course of 2020, 2021, and 2022 to an extent. Students of all ages suffered immensely under school closures that went on for far too long.
Fauci was asked recently by Fox’s Neil Cavuto if he was concerned about permanent damage from Covid shutdowns to education.
Fauci’s reply? Nah, they’re fine, let them eat cake:
Fauci: “I don’t think it’s irreparably damaged anyone”
The damage in many cases will be irreparable for the millions of kids who simply dropped out of the system altogether, usually the product of broken homes with no supervision to actually help them do schoolwork online. The rest who continued on have lost multiple grade levels of learning but will be pushed on through because schools don’t have the time or resources to actually undo the destruction.
The studies coming out in recent months are infuriating to read as experts act stunned that virtual learning and school lockdowns were damaging beyond their wildest imaginations.
Any parent watching the “virtual learning” option for more than a minute realized that it was mostly a joke for many students in many households around the country. They weren’t “learning” anything, they were staring at a screen to check a box while teachers fed them information unable to verify if they were paying attention or absorbing anything.
The latest data point, highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, is depressing to read as test scores haven’t seen this type of decline, well, ever:
The Education Department’s first look at test-score trends since the pandemic began reveals the worst drop in math and reading scores in decades for students in fourth grade, a crucial indicator for educational and economic trajectory.
Scores released Thursday show unprecedented drops on the long-term trends tests that are part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The tests are administered to U.S. students age 9.
The test scores reflect more than a pandemic problem, with experts saying it could take a generation for some scores to rebound. Some say current achievement levels could weigh on economic output in years to come.
The scores of lower-performing students are most troubling and could take decades to bounce back, said Dr. Aaron Pallas, professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
“I don’t think we can expect to see these 9-year-olds catch up by the time they leave high school,” he said, referring to the lower-performing students. “This is not something that is going to disappear quickly.”
Nine-year-olds won’t catch up by the time they leave high school. That’s the level of damage inflicted in the name of Covid on a demographic with over a 99.9% survival rate of what amounted in most childhood infections to the equivalent of a mild cold.
The desire by teachers’ unions to restrict access to in-person learning for as long as possible should be enough reason to disband them together and then sue them for irreparable harm to the very students they’re supposed to be teaching.
The federal agencies also bear responsibility like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which went out of its way to keep school regulations as onerous and unworkable as possible. The mingling of politics and science by way of allowing teachers’ unions to craft Covid school policies created a situation where parents and students were harmed as the result of unreasonable insanity.
What was the point of letting teachers jump the line for early Covid-19 vaccinations if it wasn’t to get schools open for in-person learning as soon as possible? Instead, it simply created more roadblocks.
Here is more of the testing data which, in the case of math, is seeing the first decline since the testing began back in 1971:
Average scores in reading for 2022 declined to 215 out of a possible 500, falling five points from 2020. Math scores fell seven points, to 234. The results mark the largest drop in reading scores since 1990 and the first decline in math scores since the test began in 1971. Math and reading scores for the exam are now at their lowest levels since the 1990s.
The first decline since 1971. That’s the failure of Covid-19 on children.
Republicans would do well to hammer these numbers and take Joe Rogan’s lead by encouraging voters to punish the Democratic Party for inflicting this damage on children.
? Joe Rogan’s advice to people:
“Vote Republican” ?? pic.twitter.com/KgzuSLrvWD— Kate (@KateTalksTruth) August 28, 2022
Sadly, for the children left behind who will never get the help they need to catch up for lost learning, no one will face punishment or reconciliation for that.
Instead, as a society, we will continue to bear the burden of the failure that ongoing school closures created. The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the Highland Park parade shooting were both perpetrated by individuals who became more disabused of their social norms due to school closures and Covid lockdowns.
We are all paying the price for it but the ones who perpetrated and supported it will never fully be held accountable for their intentional damaging actions that flew in the face of reasoned science and reality.
