Opinion | School Closures Have Failed America s Children – The New York Times
Flags are flying at half-staff across the United States to commemorate the half-million American lives lost to the coronavirus.
But there s another tragedy we haven t adequately confronted: Millions of American schoolchildren will soon have missed a year of in-person instruction, and we may have inflicted permanent damage on some of them, and on our country.
The reluctance of many Republicans to wear masks and practice social distancing is one reason so many Americans are dead. But the educational losses are disproportionately the fault of Democratic governors and mayors who too often let schools stay closed even as bars opened.
The blunt fact is that it is Democrats including those who run the West Coast, from California through Oregon to Washington State who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history. The result: more dropouts, less literacy and numeracy, widening race gaps, and long-term harm to some of our most marginalized youth.
Advertisement
The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank this month estimated that educational disruptions during this pandemic may increase the number of high school dropouts over 10 years by 3.8 percent, while also reducing the number of college-educated workers in the labor force. This will shrink the incomes of Americans for 70 years, until the last of today s students leave the work force, the bank said.
via www.nytimes.com
The response of our schools to this whole pandemic mess, especially those in California and San Diego in particular, has been so appalling it doesn’t bear thinking about. I don’t know what the ultimate effect on my own learning-challenged son will be. He’s at a Catholic H.S., but its policies have roughly followed those of the State and County at large. I can’t imagine it will be good.