{"id":9777,"date":"2024-03-28T16:37:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T17:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9777"},"modified":"2024-03-28T18:08:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T18:08:12","slug":"settled-pandemic-school-lockdowns-hurt-wisconsin-kids-badly-and-were-pointless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=9777","title":{"rendered":"Settled: Pandemic school lockdowns hurt Wisconsin kids badly and were pointless"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/settled-pandemic-school-lockdowns-hurt-wisconsin-kids-badly-and-were-pointless\/<\/a><\/p>\n

So when will places like Madison and Milwaukee apologize?\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

The lasting damage to children from shutting down schools for month after uselessly virtual month during the pandemic is now so obvious that even the New York Times admits it.<\/p>\n

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\"Classroom<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

That daily diary of gentry liberalism earlier this month<\/a> led its readers out of the bunker with a few thousand words summing up reality, including the latest<\/a> from oracles at Stanford and Harvard<\/a>: \u201cExtended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.\u201d<\/p>\n

To which any reasonable person would add: Let\u2019s not do that again.<\/p>\n

Researchers examined about 7,800 school districts in 41 states, Wisconsin among them. Districts that were mostly in-person starting in September 2020 saw kids in 3rd<\/sup> through 8th<\/sup> grade fall behind in math by about a third of a year. Districts that were mostly \u201cvirtual\u201d or \u201cremote\u201d that school year saw kids fall behind by more than half a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer schools were closed, the more students fell behind,\u201d the Times\u2019 authors wrote.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, Madison, which reopened<\/a> in-person learning in spring 2021<\/a>, one of the two last districts in Wisconsin to do so, and nearby Verona, open from the start of the school year. From 2019 to 2022, researchers found<\/a>, Madison kids lost more than half a grade level in math. Verona kids gained<\/em> a quarter grade. In the year since, from 2022 to 2023, Madison\u2019s children have begun to recover, but Verona\u2019s have pulled ahead at about five times Madison\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n

Districts vary according to many factors, researchers and the Times caution, but the pattern now is clear. The paper quoted an infectious disease specialist who helped write the American Academy of Pediatrics\u2019 guidance on reopening schools: \u201cWe probably kept kids out of school longer than we should have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And for what? The Times signals it\u2019s now safe to wonder that, too, quoting an eminent Covid response doctor at a prominent hospital as saying that a consensus of respectable doctors has \u201cgenerally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of a massive policy blunder, lots of kids are way behind, many are struggling ever to catch up, and this yielded no public benefit. What can you do?<\/p>\n

Well, help kids catch up, and those studies suggest some ways. Hope it helps.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s also important to ask why those in command got this so wrong.<\/p>\n

This was preventable. Two years ago, we knew<\/a> that school lockdowns had vicious effects on Wisconsin children, who showed<\/a> one the country\u2019s highest rates of self-harm. News stories told of Milwaukee children who, imprisoned at home by government panic, thought of flinging themselves off buildings.<\/p>\n

Two years before that \u2014 the summer of 2020, a few months into the pandemic, and before the start of that year of educational regression \u2014 the CDC<\/a> knew that the virus presented low risk to children<\/a> compared to the flu and said that in-person learning should resume. Researchers knew<\/a> that children were unlikely<\/a> to spread Covid. Researchers knew<\/a> that teachers were not at significant risk, and researchers knew<\/a> that protecting the vulnerable<\/a> made more sense than closing schools.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t matter: Parents and independent schools had to go to court<\/a> after Dane County tried locking down every classroom on the eve of the new school year. Teachers\u2019 unions demanded<\/a> that Gov. Tony Evers order schools closed; to his credit, he refused. It was<\/a> much the same<\/a> nationwide<\/a>, and prominent national news outlets<\/a> referred to opening the 2020-21 school year in person as if it were human sacrifice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How, then, do we ensure the blunder<\/a> isn\u2019t repeated? It doesn\u2019t have to be; lockdowns weren\u2019t a normal part of epidemic response<\/a> until this go-round<\/a>.<\/p>\n

May I suggest humility? We\u2019ve said before<\/a> that granting parents the power of school choice is a systemic way of humbling schools that can\u2019t or won\u2019t work for them. But institutions beyond schools failed children here, too, including the mass media\u2019s commanding heights<\/a>. What we need to hear out of them are the words that are the start of humility: apologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apologies for playing to the ill-informed fears<\/a> of the noisiest parts of social media. Apologies for treating the question of school reopening<\/a> as one of \u201cif Trump\u2019s for it, it must be wrong.\u201d Apologies for going along with a teachers\u2019 union power play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not asking a lot. But if the Madison or Milwaukee school boards have said they\u2019re sorry, I haven\u2019t heard. The New York Times\u2019 story includes no hint of contrition, just a mistakes-were-made message \u2014 so very close to what\u2019s needed to start rebuilding trust, but not quite there.<\/p>\n

Patrick McIlheran is the Director of Policy at the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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