School Lockdowns Have Damaged Children

Long time readers of this blog recall that I have been pointing out the damage that our public health authorities have visited on children by closing down the school system. Millions of schoolchildren have been rendered stupid by policies promoted by teachers unions and Democratic politicians.

Now, Dana Goldstein addresses the crisis in the New York Times. Given that this is the New York Times and that running cover for those responsible is a way of life at the newspaper of record, Goldstein does not say who is responsible. She pretends that we can solve the problem by hiring more teachers and giving them more money. And yet, if the teaching profession has lost favor, perhaps the fault lies with the teachers’ unions and their Democratic enablers. Could it be that people no longer want to be part of a profession that is in the business of damaging children.

Anyway, Goldstein reports the alarming results of school shutdowns and remote learning.

The kindergarten crisis of last year, when millions of 5-year-olds spent months outside of classrooms, has become this year’s reading emergency.

As the pandemic enters its third year, a cluster of new studies now show that about a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic.

In Virginia, one study found that early reading skills were at a 20-year low this fall, which the researchers described as “alarming.”

In the Boston region, 60 percent of students at some high-poverty schools have been identified as at high risk for reading problems — twice the number of students as before the pandemic, according to Tiffany P. Hogan, director of the Speech and Language Literacy Lab at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston.

Children in every demographic group have been affected, but Black and Hispanic children, as well as those from low-income families, those with disabilities and those who are not fluent in English, have fallen the furthest behind.

Note the last paragraph. Note that I have remarked on this problem often and even stridently on this blog. Those who are being hurt the most are minority children. The irony should escape no one. These children’s parents voted for the politicians who produced the conditions that damaged their children.

As it happens, Goldstein reports, the literacy crisis did not begin with the pandemic. The pandemic has simply made things worse. 

The literacy crisis did not start with the pandemic. In 2019, results on national and international exams showed stagnant or declining American performance in reading, and widening gaps between high and low performers. The causes are multifaceted, but many experts point to a shortage of educators trained in phonics and phonemic awareness — the foundational skills of linking the sounds of spoken English to the letters that appear on the page.

The causes are multifaceted. You don’t say. You might say that the causes have something to do with broken homes, with divorced parents, with fatherless homes and with crime ridden neighborhoods. We also know that putting these same children in charter schools can improve their academic performance significantly, but, then again, the teachers unions and their Democratic politician satraps, are strongly opposed to charter schools.

We note these points because Goldstein herself seems oblivious to anything but the union interest in extracting more money for doing less work.

In the world of compare-and-contrast, I offer you a few words from a New York Post editorial about the same subject. The Post, as opposed to the corrupt Times, directs its attention and focuses its indictment on the teachers’ unions, group whose leaders, as I have often said, belong in jail.

It editorializes:

“I believe kids are resilient and kids will recover,” said American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten in February 2021 when asked about education loss from school closures nationwide. 

Now the numbers are in. And they confirm what she denied but every parent knew: Closed schools hurt our kids. 

Because of the senseless policies Weingarten championed, our youngest students are missing crucial reading benchmarks. One study shows about 35% of students K-2 missing reading benchmarks, vs. 21% in 2019. 

Another shows less than half of students in kindergarten (47%) and 1st grade (48%) in the 2021-22 school year are “on track” to learn to read. That’s down from 55% and 58% in 2019. 

Does that look like “resilience”?

The racial stats are grimmer: Only 37% of black 1st graders are “on track” to hit those literacy benchmarks in 2021, down from 51% in 2019. For Hispanics, it’s 42%, down from 54%. 

All the endless talk about “equity” from people like Weingarten was empty noise. She and her peers pushed rules that hurt the most vulnerable groups in America. 

Will she be held to account for the damage she and her cohorts have done to American children? Don’t hold your breath?