Over the past year, America has leaned much about how to respond and how not to respond to a pandemic. I must say some things we’ve witnessed caused me to think how I would have dealt with the situation had I been in charge. To be sure, some of what we have seen has the benefit of what we term 20-20 hindsight. That is a perspective that is easy when you look back and critique how things transpired. But not everything is a matter of hindsight. Some things could have been foreseen.
Take for example the closing of schools. In my native Virginia, the Governor slammed the doors shut early in the process, as far back as March of 2020. I recall even then it was unclear whether the threat of infection to children was as great as it was for adults. Nevertheless, many people were concerned and went along with the Governor’s decision to close schools, not temporarily, but for the remainder of the year. Most states did as well, but not all.
Since that decision, we have largely confirmed that infections among children are in fact very limited. In particularly, health experts worried that the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) associated COVID-19 was a very profound threat to youngsters. However, here is Virginia, as of this writing, there have been only 27 cases and no deaths resulting from this condition. In other words, the vast majority of children in Virginia have weathered the COVID threat. Unfortunately, in the process, they had been greatly harmed by the decision of the Governor to lock them out of the classroom ab ovo for the entire 2020 school year, and even now with minor and useless exceptions.
A proper response should have been one that embraced the political call during the 2020 presidential campaign to “follow the science.” But this was assiduously rejected by both the Governor of Virginia—who ironically is a doctor—and the teacher unions in the state who are purported to care about educating children. Unfortunately, our children’s education was subordinated to the political designs of forces that wanted to keep schools closed. Why? Because it fed nicely into a narrative that made people increasingly unhappy and agitated about the entire COVID crisis. As some political wags like to say, “never let a crisis go to waste.” In reality, these people allowed our children’s education to go to waste.
As of May last year, most kids had lost an entire semester of school. The lockdown in Virginia was not lifted to permit a summer session—one we now know could have occurred quite safely—and the harm inflicted on schools persisted needlessly. Mind you, private schools continued to operate, and their children have been fine. Their teachers have also been safe because they have taken commonsense protective measures that have mitigated the danger of contracting the disease. They “followed the science” and benefitted from doing so.
Sadly here in Virginia and in the U.S. at large, teacher unions have held out and refused to return to classrooms, now maintaining that they will not until they are vaccinated. In Europe, schools have been open for months and children have not been at risk. They too “followed the science.” But apparently teachers here in Virginia—some who putatively teach science—have decided to follow “the political science.” Their cynicism and selfishness is both stunning and reprehensible, even as they continue to draw a salary while being physically absent from classrooms. To be sure, most teachers are struggling to teach in a virtual environment, and many have said it is not working well. I am convinced that many teachers are in fact ready to return to the classroom now, but the teacher unions stand in the way.
I had occasion to speak to a high school senior this week who described his situation. “Currently we are doing what is an in-class virtual environment where we all show up with our laptops, sit in the classroom, and see our teacher on ‘zoom.’ But nobody is paying attention.” This young man went on to say that he would have applied for early admission to college last fall, but his education and grades suffered so badly that he was forced to wait until he improved his grade point average. He’s in a teacherless classroom. His teacher is at home.
There are other lessons also, such as the destruction of our economy and the forced closing of thousands of restaurants. But the missteps in closing schools led to the miseducation of our children, something that will have lasting consequences.
None of this would have happened if our leaders and the teacher unions simply “followed the science” that politicians used as their rally call. They deserve an “F” for what they did to our children.
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Categories: CBW
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