Covid Regime Carnage In Primary Education

I haven’t been posting much regarding the Covid Regime lately but, as most readers will be aware, there is a steady and continuing flow of revelations both on the scientific and medical fronts (side effects, efficacy or not, etc.) as well as with regard to the society wide effects of the lockdowns. In particular, the devastating effect that government school shutdowns—a result of the usual collusion between Dem politicians and their counterparts in the government unions—had on students is now being quantified. This is damage of a sort that is not likely to be reversed soon—if ever.

I draw attention to two articles. The first appeared today at the Federalist:

Abysmal National Test Score Drops Show School Lockdowns Hurt America’s Poor The Most

The test showed a five-point decline in reading scores—the largest since 1990—and an even larger, seven-point drop in math, the first one recorded in the test’s 50-year history.

You can read the numbers at the link. None of it will surprise anyone who has the slightest grasp on social realities. The lockdowns had nothing to do with science—study after study has shown this—and the crushing results on student attainment were entirely predictable. Indeed, those results were predicted by those educators who had the best interests of young people at heart. The lockdowns were, in fact, simply about the government employed and unionized teachers. They got the benefits they were looking for, and those benefits were personal to them—nothing to do with the kids.

A few days ago Karl Denninger had a hard hitting post that pointed out the effects of all this “going forward”—for the future of society. If we could simply say, ‘Lesson learned, won’t try lockdowns again,’ and move on to rectifying the damage done, that would be one thing. However, reality isn’t that forgiving.

Think You'll Have Medicare?

KD—and this is one of his family friendly posts—argues that the effects of this educational devastation will be like a tsunami moving through the economy. Again, follow the link for the full argument. I’ll simply excerpt the introductory portion of his post which provides the underpinning for the rest of his argument. Here are two initial points. First, the AP article that KD links makes the same point that the article at the Federalist made—the students most in need of help have been hurt the worst. Duh! Second, across the nation, all these kids were simply promoted to the next grade. Think about the ramifications of that. How will that be dealt with? Answer: There will be lots of uplifting talk about remediation and so forth, but in the real world those kids will be left behind. It’s inevitable:

No you won't.

Mounting evidence from around the country shows that students who spent most of the time learning remotely during the 2020-2021 school year, many of them Black and Latino, lost about half of an academic year of learning. That’s twice as much as their peers who studied in person that year.

Third graders are at a particularly delicate moment. This is the year when they must master reading or risk school failure. Everything after third grade will require reading comprehension to learn math, social studies and science. Students who don’t read fluently by the end of third grade are more likely to struggle in the future, and even drop out, studies show.

If even half of these kids fail by this year that loss will be permanent.  There are approximately sixty million children under the age of 18 in elementary and secondary schools in the United States.  This is 1/6th of that so about ten million said kids are at risk and a 50% failure rate, which is likely low, means five million of them will never pay taxes or contribute to the economy in a meaningful manner.

At the same time those who get older march onward.  This in turn means two years worth of birth rate is not only gone its worse than gone because those kids will basically be wards of the state welfare apparatus.

This is the “compassionate society” as it functions—for the benefits of its managers and unionized troops.

We’re seeing reaction from more and more parents, but the sad fact is that it will be too late for those most in need. Will we see any pushback at the polls? Hope so. Here’s how KD closes:

The nasty part of this won't hit the economy for five to ten years and once it does it will not leave for forty more years.  That's how long it will be, roughly, before those people "pass through" the economy.

There's nothing that can be done about it but we damn well ought to make sure we do plenty to the people who caused it so as to make damn sure nobody ever tries that again.