Many leaders were not prepared to deal with COVID-19 when it first struck. Everybody shut down for “15 days to slow the spread,” including schools. Schools forced students of all ages into remote learning. But as businesses opened back up, many schools didn’t.
One of my close friends sits on our school board. I will never forget how outraged he and the other school board members were when they suggested that local schools be closed. The board eventually gave parents the option.
But, not all schools are so fortunate. Remote learning is more popular in areas where Democrats rule and teachers’ unions hold too much power over school policy.
Parents can share the effects that remote learning had on their children. This has led to the national parental rights revolution, not just in Virginia, Florida, and Georgia but all across the country.
What about subjects our students should learn? It’s shocking that even The New York Times acknowledged the pandemic of education.
Thursday’s New York Times morning news headline is “Not Good for Learning”
Recent research has shown the high cost of closing schools that last long in some communities.
David Leonhardt writes: The MAP test is taken by millions of K-12 students three times a year. It tests their reading and math skills. Researchers from Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research used the results of the MAP to study the learning process over a two-year period that began in fall 2019 and ended in spring 2019.
The researchers divided students into groups based on how many hours they had spent in-person school in 2020-21. This academic year saw the most variation in school availability. It was approximately 20%.
These losses could be attributed to the fact that many students learned remotely during the spring 2020 pandemic. Families had to cope with disruption and illness.
Students who were away for most of 2020-21 had the worse outcomes.
Take this in. Math learning was cut off by a fifth in the year due to the shutdowns. But math learning was not lost by half the students who lived near dominant teachers’ unions.
Leonhardt says that this is consistent with other studies.
Leonhardt exposes some very sad truths to the left. He says schools that have a large number of poor students are more likely to be closed than other schools.
He continued, “Why?” Many of these schools are located in large cities. They are more likely to be run Democratically and have a faster turnaround time for reopening schools. Some unions advocate remote education.
The quiet part can be said loudly.
Leonhardt explained that both educational experts and bureaucrats have different ideas on how to fix the damage. It’s inexcusable to allow this to happen again.
We’re beginning to see the long-term effects of government overreach and the lack of a strategy (especially from the Biden Administration). It’s concerning that students, teachers’ unions, and bureaucrats who have lost so much of their learning time are now able to catch up
We must keep this promise: Never let this happen again.
