The harm done to children by the school lockdown
The long-term closing of schools and the substitution of remote learning was one of the worst decisions of many bad decisions made during the lockdown. There’s now a study that attempts to measure some of the effects:
The study, from the consulting firm McKinsey, shows how school shutdowns and lockdowns set back millions of American students—and hurt the poorest and most vulnerable families hardest. It reiterates how prolonged school closures, instigated by overly cautious politicians at the behest of intransigent teachers’ unions, may have set back an entire generation of American children.
The report itself can be found here. I haven’t read it yet, but this is from the article I linked above:
Worst of all, these results may underestimate the true impact of COVID on learning loss, because of the types of data used. McKinsey notes that the Curriculum Associates testing results only come from in-school assessments. In other words, the study cannot capture districts, or students, that did not return to in-person learning last spring—and who likely face the greatest educational setbacks due to their prolonged time away from the classroom…
The learning losses, chronic absenteeism, and dropouts of the past 16 months will have a profound impact on the economy when the “COVID generation” enters the workforce. McKinsey estimates a potential loss to American GDP of $128 billion to $188 billion each year due to the learning gaps caused by the pandemic.
The long-term closing of schools in many districts was probably one of the single worst decisions of the COVID pandemic reaction, not just because of the effects – easy to have predicted, and that includes the emotional repercussions – but also because it was known almost from the start that children were among the least vulnerable as well as least likely to spread the illness to others. But that didn’t stop the COVID authorities.
To those in charge, though, their goal wasn’t to protect children. It probably wasn’t even to protect teachers. It was to placate the teachers’ unions, among the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party and Democrat politicians. In addition, the fact that it would disproportionately hurt poor and minority students – that is, what we now call students of color – is no problem for the Democrats, either. They have repeatedly shown they are more than willing to sacrifice children of that demographic to the will of the influential unions by jettisoning charter schools, one of the most promising avenues for minority children to become successful.
As for the influence of the lockdown of schools on the future American workforce, the left doesn’t believe in such quaint notions as “merit,” either, so it’s all good.
Right on all counts. The only good thing to come out of this school fiasco is the increasing number of students in private schools or being hone-schooled, but that won’t rescue most of them.
“…may have set back an entire generation of American children.”
Or as the Left and their CCP masters call it “a primary feature.”
That should be “home-schooled,” 4:22 above. Oops.
My niece has a daughter going in to the first grade and she will now have had her entire first two years of school be masked. And it’s not just the masking it’s the fear and suspicion that goes along with it.
In a totally F’d up time this has to be the worst.
When I did my stint teaching in public schools, I refused all invitations to join the NEA, (and was grateful that my state didn’t force me to join or pay dues whether I wanted to or not) because I realized early on that the union did not exist to promote the welfare of children, as they claimed. It did not even exist to promote the welfare of teachers. Like pretty much all other unions, it existed to maintain the jobs and influence of union officials.
neo,
“the effects – easy to have predicted”
If memory serves, they were predicted and loudly.
“it was known almost from the start that children were among the least vulnerable as well as least likely to spread the illness to others.”
“They have repeatedly shown they are more than willing to sacrifice children…”
Politicians? Unions? NO. Teachers did this, those we trust our children into the care of, it is they who bear primary responsibility for the harm. Had they en masse objected, the unions and politicians would have backed down. Teachers went along with the unions, while collecting their paychecks at home.
The teachers and doctors who’ve gone along with this charade, more than any others, bear responsibility for it.
Respect is earned and they’ve thrown away the high regard they once possessed.
Geoffrey Britain:
The people in teachers’ unions are teachers. So when I say unions, of course I mean some teachers because teachers are in them.
But do you know what percentage of teachers in the unions wanted the lockdowns to last so long? My guess is there were plenty who disagreed. It certainly wasn’t all teachers. And of course, in some states they have been holding in-person classes for a long time. It’s mostly in very blue states that the lockdowns went on so long.
“When children pay union dues, I will care about children.”
Albert Shanker, president of American Federation of Teachers.
Even in a blue state it wasn’t a blanket thing. Lots of rural and small town districts went to school (I hate ‘in person’ that is phony term) for most of the last year with masks but in the larger districts like Seattle and Tacoma it was very limited.
I’ve heard many teachers grouse privately about it and that’s nice but in the end enough support the unions.
It’s kind of like the ‘liberals’ who say they disagree with the left but still vote for the Democrats.
The last thing the Left wants, us for black children to succeed. That would take them off of the Democrat Plantation.
Mike K:
That Shanker quote seemed suspect to me for several reasons, but the main one is that even if he thought such a thing it would be self-destructive to actually SAY so.
And sure enough, it turns out it’s probably a fake quote. Take a look. Now, obviously, that source is a pro-Shanker source, and the WaPo that it quotes is the MSM. But it seems to me that the quote has no source other than rumor.
McKinsey, BCG and all the others of their rotten ilk are a bunch of Whores who tell (Mis-)Management what they want to hear or or are too lily-livered to propose themselves for a nice fat fee. So the fact that something has the imprimatur of McKinsey is neither here nor there.
I can accept that some of the Lumpenproletariat (especially young Blacks) have lost by not being in public schools and missing out on some rudiments of instruction in how to behave in the ruins of Western Civ.
For the rest, freedom from the public education system should have been a golden opportunity to learn more and learn better.
Obviously I have no sympathy for teachers’ unions and their cowardice and laziness masked as cowardice. But on the whole keeping them as far from a generation of children as humanly possible might be a net plus.
neo,
Yes I realize that some teachers privately opposed it. How many teachers have spoken out against CRT? Almost certainly, the exact percentage that spoke out against school lockdowns.
You must realize that the overwhelming percentage of teachers are now leftists. As given the March Through the Institutions, focusing Marxist indoctrination and screening for compliance with leftist tenets had to be at the top of the list in qualifying for being hired. Now, over many decades.
Nothing new here, long ago “The Closing of the American Mind” laid bare the extent of the rot in ‘education’.
The old saw applies, if you lay down with pigs, you’re going to get dirty.
I deeply wish it were not so but the left is forcing the drawing of lines in the sand. So I’m done giving people the benefit of the doubt when they know but refuse to say, ‘this is wrong’.
Either they’re for the land of the free and the brave or they’re parasites. Bravery isn’t acting out of a lack of fear, its doing the right thing when you’re utterly terrified. In staying silent, they’re enabling tyranny to win.
Geoffrey Britain:
I have no idea how many teachers have spoken out against either lockdowns or CRT. And neither do you. It’s not something we have numbers on. I’ve read about some individuals who have, but I have no idea about the ones I haven’t read about.
What’s more, people are afraid to speak. So we have little idea how many secretly are not in favor but don’t speak out because they’re afraid.
I’m well aware that for decades the schools of education have leaned leftist. They have churned out new teachers who either are leftists, are sympathetic to the left, are useful idiots who don’t realize they are serving the left, or are just going along to get along but don’t believe any of it. What the exact proportions are I really don’t know. And then of course there are older teachers who weren’t trained that way. Perhaps they’ve all retired by now, but we don’t know that either.
Here’s an article from May 2020 that asked teachers about possible school re-openings in the fall. One in five said they didn’t want to go back in the fall if schools re-opened. That seems to mean that 4 in 5 would go back. To me, this indicates that the majority of teachers were not in favor of the lockdowns going on and on.
“When children pay union dues, I will care about children.”
Albert Shanker, president of American Federation of Teachers.
(alleged, and probably falsely so, according to Neo)
However, “fake but accurate” is still a thing for Democrats, so I’m fine with using their standards on this one.
In fairness to whoever wrote this, it’s not the job of the AFT to look after the children’s welfare (even if they claim to, as Topo says they do); that’s the job of the parents and the school boards.
That the parents don’t know or don’t care how the unions control the schools, and that the school boards are bought off by the unions, are separate problems.
On the gripping hand, the unions aren’t really doing well by the teachers either, other than to keep them from being fired for incompetence.
“Like pretty much all other unions, it existed to maintain the jobs and influence of union officials.” – Topo Gigio
Because Unions are non-governmental bureaucracies.
https://mises.org/library/seven-rules-bureaucracy
Very, very long, with lots of details and examples, but everyone here will quickly recognize all seven rules, which appear midway through the article.
TL;DR version (which is what I was looking for when the Mises piece hit the top of my first search):
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
2010-09-11
The Iron Law is referenced in the comments to this post, which is also germane to the topic of union perfidy, and the current situation in general.
https://www.isegoria.net/2008/07/robert-conquests-three-laws-of-politics/
Moore’s amendment sounds about right for Teachers’ Unions, since most teachers (at least those I knew) really do care about children and teaching them well (for some value of “well”), but I don’t know why people go into teaching now — even 30 years ago, the insanity drove my mother out when she reached retirement age, and she loved the kids and the job.
I, and many others who might have been teachers in a former era, would not get involved in that hot mess in any way.
Which is why the Leftists were able to take over eventually.
Also for your edification and entertainment:
https://taxmama.com/asktaxmama/murphys-laws-of-bureaucracies/
Also encountered during my bout of research, this post by Francis Porretto is well worth reading. The specific situation discussed is from 2003, but the analysis and conclusions are generally applicable to any number of international policy positions which seem odd to the lay observer, and may also explain why President Trump had so much difficulty implementing his agendas.
https://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-cabal-of-its-enemies_20.html
@AesopFan:
What you describe cannot be reversed by a reactionary march back through the institutions. The Left knows when it’s being attacked and fights back with everything. Only ‘Conservatives’ are weak and permit this kind of thing to be done to them.
Two approaches I can think of:
(1) Seize Power by any means and burn it all down and rebuild. Bit drastic IMHO. I like electric light and air conditioning.
(2) Seize Power by any means and clean them up == Gleichschaltung.
And anyone who gets the Heebie-jeebies (so to speak) about (2) needs to have a good long think about whether or not they have been hypnotised into letting the Left always win. History doesn’t have to repeat itself in every aspect.
Also, Porretto’s website leads with this poem fragment, which has a certain amount of resonance these days.
“Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy,
And the dogs that bark revolution.
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies!”
(Robinson Jeffers)
Goodreads adds the line “said the gamey black-maned wild boar tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.”
More about Jeffers and his poetry here; the excerpt cited, from “The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean” (1941) is pretty far down.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/08/12/envying-the-cruel-falcon-the-anti-liberal-poetry-of-robinson-jeffers-part-two-of-two/
Skimmed a few more of Porretto’s posts, and found this gem:
“Leftists are the Dorian Greys of our time. What they see in the mirror when they are alone is what they cannot permit us to see under any circumstances.”
https://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2015/08/leftist-lies-fascism.html
Those were all archived posts; the new home of his website is here:
http://www.libertystorch.info/
This is tangentially a Covid thread, so here is a current post on the subject by one of the contributors, Nitzakhon. The emotional reaction seems a bit extreme to me, but it’s well within in the zeitgeist of the day.
http://www.libertystorch.info/2021/08/02/an-observation-or-two-on-jab-mandates/
And some observations about mandate protests in other countries, and extreme anti-vax sentiments.
The link underneath “Rule 3” goes here.
https://www.libertystorch.info/2021/07/16/collection-of-covid-info/
neo,
I don’t have to know the exact extent of a forest fire to know that a firestorm is upon us. Though we do have a pretty good idea of how many teachers have publicly spoken out against the lockdowns because the left immediately cancels them, which results in an outcry of protest on the right.
Yes, no doubt a number of teachers are afraid to speak out. Revisit my comment about bravery. What degree of character and allegiance to principle, much less concern for their students can a teacher actually have, when they remain silent as they stand witness to the degree of harm being done to innocents entrusted to their care?
Take off your lawyer hat. We don’t need to know “the exact proportions” of how many teachers oppose the lockdowns. All we need to know is that the left is in charge of the institution and that the great majority of however many who are opposed… are silent. That silence renders them morally culpable in the abuse. Given that we’re talking about children, moral culpability cannot be overestimated.
They’re part and parcel of a system that is teaching young, impressionable children that evil is good and good, evil.
It doesn’t matter whether they personally believe that, what matters is that when they teach the authorized curriculum, they’re advocating it. And you can bet that every teacher silently opposed is being forced to comply.
Of course 4 out of 5 would go back if required to do so. They’re jobs i.e. income depend upon it. To quote AesopFan’s quote; “You cannot make a man see something when his income depends on his not seeing it.” Of course we’re talking about those who do see it but are silent, which puts the lie to protestations of truly caring about the children they ‘teach’.
Again, when we are required by circumstance to do the right thing and we choose not to do it, we have chosen to do the wrong thing.
Is that harsh? No, it’s reality and consequence.
My son in NYC came and visited with several friends last weekend. One of his friends just got a job with a company which (if I understand correctly) contracts with charter schools to provide instructors in various subjects. She will be teaching art remotely to K through 2d graders, most of whom have never attended school in person.
That is profoundly disturbing to me. I know that kids are not as fragile as we make them out to be (think of what 4-7 year olds have come through throughout wars and plagues, etc. historically), but the idea that adults who profess to care greatly about the welfare of children would not merely permit but mandate such a situation is sad and troubling.
I asked her: “What do you do when Little Billy starts eating the crayons?” She laughed, but agreed that she has no idea. She is an intelligent and capable person, and will probably be an excellent art teacher, but the situation is absurd.
When the same people are guilty of behavior that is evil often enough and long enough and consistently enough, can we draw conclusions about the moral makeup of those people? What about those who knowingly and enthusiastically support them?
In this case we’re discussing teachers (or rather their extremely political and partisan union leaders). We could as easily look at Cuomo and liberals’ love affair for him precisely while and after he was killing thousands of seniors. People embracing and celebrating evil actions.
Obviously tribalism explains some of it. Can we dismiss such a massive embrace of evil behavior simply as a product of tribalism? It’s okay to loot and burn and viciously slander innocent people because it is our side doing it? It’s okay to repeatedly subvert the constitution and the rule of law because it’s our side? It’s okay to steal elections as long as we do it? Biden can violate the constitution with the eviction moratorium because he’s our guy. Biden can be corrupt and a criminal because he’s ours? Same for Obama and the Clintons and Cuomos and all the rest of the corrupt and crooked Ds? The FBI, CIA, DOJ and NSA can violate everything our nation stands for as long as they are our guys? The news media can lie relentlessly because they’re ours? We don’t mind crushing small business because they don’t tend to vote for our side?
I understand people are uncomfortable with the word “evil”. I was, too. But “morally immature” doesn’t adequately describe all this. I don’t think “morally deficient” fits, either. These people are nasty, vile and vicious. They are utterly unconcerned about the death and destruction they wreak or they support. If you don’t use ‘evil’, what description is adequate?
Boatbuilder is correct that human beings are remarkably resilient. But I’ll bet whatever the normal level of mental illness and neurosis is in a society, that level is going to rise substantially as this pandemic generation grows up.
Mike
I recollect seeing a film clip of that teacher’s union quote. Though possibly the quote was “represent children” rather than “care about children.” I saw it a long time ago, and the event date was much older than that. My recollection was that it was a man at a podium in front of a large union convention or gathering. And I think the speaker was the union’s treasurer. That is, the money man was speaking about money, which only slightly tempers it’s meaning.
I tried to find a quote from Gov. Jerry Brown when he was caught on a hot mic in a telephone conference call, during his governorship reboot. (He said something about the teacher’s unions controlling gov. policy in some fashion.) Sorry, this event has been scrubbed from the Bingiverse.
How did “children ” even survive before mandatory “free” (K)El-Hi?
On paved carriage streets OR dirt wagon roads?
None of you survived as children. The trauma is deep. Gb is saying what i want to say which is good.