Math And Reading Scores For Young Teenagers At Lowest Level In Decades Thanks To COVID School Closures
Government imposed school closures during the COVID pandemic have contributed to catastrophic learning losses.
Test scores released on Wednesday from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that math and reading scores from 13-year-olds have hit the lowest level in decades.
According to the New York Times, the "last time math performance was this low for 13-year-olds was in 1990."
Reading scores haven't been this low since "only" 2004.
And even the times was forced to admit that performance has fallen "significantly" since the 2019-2020 school year. Exactly when COVID lockdowns hit.
What government enforced policies happened around then to contribute to teenagers losing out of important educational experiences?
Unsurprisingly, those from lower income brackets experienced larger drops in test scores.
The Times quoted Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics on the concerning results.
“The bottom line — these results show that there are troubling gaps in the basic skills of these students,” Carr said. “This is a huge-scale challenge that faces the nation.”
This is exactly the result that many on the right warned about during COVID shutdowns. And exactly the result ignored by the left and their allies in the teachers unions.
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, along with members of Congress, parents and caregiving advocates hold a press conference supporting Build Back Better investments in home care, childcare, paid leave and expanded CTC payments in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for MomsRising Together)
COVID Lockdowns Hurt Children And Helped No One But Teachers Unions
It's no secret at this point that teachers unions were instrumental in continuing school closures throughout 2020 and into 2021.
While the pandemic and closures are thankfully behind us, going forward it's clear that the unions are a dangerous force to be reckoned with.
Instead of apologizing for their role in harming children during COVID and causing tremendous learning loss, they've turned even harder into politics.
Randi Weingarten announced recently that she and her union were "proud" to endorse Joe Biden for reelection.
Ignoring Biden's monstrous track record of failure in virtually every area and obvious cognitive decline, Weingarten's support shows that teachers unions know that the left will listen to their demands.
Just as they did on COVID-era school closures.
Children had their educational futures derailed. Saw their normality turned upside down by masking policies and were put at a massive competitive disadvantage.
All because teachers unions were committed to ignoring evidence coming from Europe that schools could safely remain open.
Lockdowns were unimaginable failures that are often associated with worse outcomes, not better ones.
But because they were favored by the left and their allies in teachers unions and the media, the harms are ignored or downplayed.
Anti-science political posturing from activist groups accelerated during the pandemic. And children paid the price.