OPINION:
During the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, the American public was assured by both the mainstream media and those in the federal government that our children were “resilient” and could easily make up any learning loss incurred through digital, at-home learning.
In a 2021 interview with Axios, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers — who advocated 18 months of school lockdowns — was asked: “Is there a point in which kids have been out of in-person school for so long that the education that they’ve lost isn’t really recoverable, that the third grade, the fourth grade, the kindergarten they lost, they can take extra semesters in the summer; they can do [that], but it can’t really be fixed?”
“No,” said Ms. Weingarten, who runs the second-largest union in the United States. “I don’t believe that. I believe that kids are resilient and kids will recover.”
This week, it was revealed there are 23 Baltimore schools where not a single student is doing math at grade level, according to a report from Project Baltimore. Not one student.
Project Baltimore evaluated 150 schools in the district, and 23 of them — 10 high schools, eight elementary schools, three high schools and two middle schools — didn’t meet expectations.
The Maryland State Department of Education’s 2022 state test results show Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in Maryland, with just 7% of third through eighth graders testing proficient in math. Meaning: 93% of all of Baltimore City Schools students cannot do math at grade level.
Baltimore’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Scott, has dodged questions from the press about the test scores and refused to take any accountability. On Tuesday, he blamed the pandemic — saying schools across the nation have suffered, with test scores dropping nationwide from pre-pandemic levels.
He’s not wrong.
In September, the U.S. Department of Education revealed reading and math scores of elementary school students plummeted during the pandemic. The hardest hit: fourth graders, whose scores registered the largest drop in two decades.
COVID-related school shutdowns and delayed reopenings have placed learning losses at the equivalent of a year or more of schooling, resulting in 6% to 9% lower lifetime earnings for the average student and more drastic losses for minority and low-income children, according to a report by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
The federal government provided $190 billion in stimulus funds to help schools during the pandemic, but only 20% of that money was dedicated directly to addressing student learning losses.
The losses are likely not recoverable — especially when teachers unions, in conjunction with the Democratic Party, refuse to fire underperforming teachers and lobby against any alternative to public schooling, including charter schools and school vouchers — so parents can decide where their children will be educated.
Another study released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described how nearly 3 in 5 teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, double the rate among boys, with 1 in 3 considering suicide.
The rates of sadness are the highest in a decade, with officials blaming the isolation and stress of the pandemic for the increased rates.
“I think there’s really no question what this data is telling us,” psychologist Kathleen Ethier, head of the CDC’s adolescent and school health program, told The New York Times. “Young people are telling us that they are in crisis.”
The survey follows another CDC report released earlier this month, which showed increased suicide rates among younger Americans and people of color after a two-year decline.
Isolation, combined with the increased use of smartphones and other digital devices, contributed to the increase.
Our kids are not all right.
Politicians need to stop listening to the likes of Ms. Weingarten and start advocating increased parental rights regarding our children’s education and health.
Parents know best — it’s time we put them back in the driver’s seat and get government bureaucrats out of our families’ lives and decision-making — from the school board level on up.
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