In February 2021—the same month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a school-reopening plan that effectively extended the Covid closures—teachers’ union bosses Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Becky Pringle of the National Education Association (NEA) were in constant contact with then-CDC director Rochelle Walensky. The lobbying paid off handsomely, according to reporting by the New York Post, with the CDC adopting union advice “nearly verbatim” in at least two cases.
By now, even most mainstream liberal commentators have acknowledged that the long-term school closures of the pandemic era were disastrous. Yet the root of that disaster—the tendency to put the political preferences of adults over the well-being of America’s K–12 children—have barely been discussed beyond the pandemic context.
A new book by Ohio State University political scientist Vladimir Kogan, No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids, looks to change this. Kogan draws attention to how schools put culture-war politics and other considerations over the needs of students and parents.
He begins with the problematic notion that “schools are ‘community institutions.’” This is a politically convenient concept that allows schools to get away with poor performance and drift from their core mission, making education about everything but academic performance. “Would residents be OK with drinking contaminated water, laced with dysentery and typhoid, in order to protect the jobs of those who work for public water agencies?” Kogan asks.
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