Things weren't great before the disastrous pandemic-era policies, but conditions worsened dramatically after the long school closures, the vast expansion of online "learning," the turn to social media for peer interaction, and the message sent to kids that they were disease vectors whose education matters. 

Key findings from the most recent school year available (2021-2022) include:

◼ In 2022, Only 26% of eighth graders were at or above proficient in math, much worse than before the pandemic (33% in 2019).

◼ Less than a third of fourth graders (32%) were at or above proficient in reading, two percentage points lower than right before the pandemic (34% in 2019).

◼ Thirty percent of all students (14.7 million students) were chronically absent, nearly double pre-pandemic rates (16% in 2018–19, the final school year fully unaffected by COVID). Two out of three students attended schools plagued by chronic absence.

◼ Four out of ten (40%) had undergone at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), such as family economic hardship or their parents having divorced, separated or served time in jail. These averages mask even worse educational outcomes for students of color, kids in immigrant families and children from low-income families or attending low-income schools. The gaps they face can affect their ability to succeed and thrive as adults.

Yikes. 

It's impossible to overstate how disastrous pandemic-era policies were, and most people still have no idea that the negative consequences were not just predictable but predicted by many. I firmly believe, and there is evidence, that had Trump not begun pushing for school reopenings (and the Republican governors such as Kemp and DeSantis) schools would have reopened much sooner. 

Every public health plan for a pandemic--prior to COVID--recommended keeping schools open. But, since Trump recommended reopening schools, the Establishment balked. It really was that simple. 

There has been a long, all-too-slow slog over the past couple of decades in which student performance has increased. Too slowly, too expensively, but there had been some improvement. 

All that improvement has disappeared and then some. 

Most significantly, although mostly unmeasured, is the reality that millions of kids have simply left the education system altogether. If they were in private schools, we would know, and few of them are being homeschooled (although both private schooling and homeschooling have increased, thank God). 

They are just gone. Off the radar and perhaps never to be seen again. This is a disaster. Chronic absenteeism has almost doubled since the pandemic--and these are kids who are technically in school! These kids are already behind, and getting farther behind every day. 

Public schools are beyond saving, and we should quit trying. Almost every dime we pour into the system goes to ever-expanding bureaucracy, not classroom education, and the younger generation of teachers are, for the most part, woke automatons who are breeding activists, not critical thinkers. 

Head of the LA teachers union:

“Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK our babies may not have learned their times tables. They learned resilience, survival. They know the difference between a riot and protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”https://t.co/aHflJtdeBL

— Theo Jordan (@Theo_TJ_Jordan) June 2, 2023

Teacher unions have zero interest in educating kids, and disbanding public schools should mean disbanding the unions ruining education and our kids' futures. 

Condi Rice has been an advocate of school choice and hit the nail on the head: wealthier people have school choice; it's just the poorer kids who don't. We have to change that, and the pandemic proved how true it is. Private school kids went back to school early; public schools in some places stayed closed for almost 2 years. 

Finally, after decades of activists working in the trenches, school choice is becoming a reality in Red states. It is another example of the growing divide in the country, in which Blue states get bluer and Red states get rational. 

BREAKING: Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry just signed a bill to fund students instead of systems.

Louisiana is now the 12th state to pass universal school choice.

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) June 19, 2024

Liberals had their shot to prove their competence, and prove it they did: they have none. For too long conservatives were on the back foot, slowing but not stopping the destruction of our kids. 

Finally that is changing. Not soon enough by decades, but better now than even later.