(PJ Media) The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tested nine-year-old students across the country, comparing their scores from before the pandemic to this year, and found some disturbing results.
Math scores dropped seven points during that period, marking the first-ever decline, while reading scores slipped five points, producing the largest dip in 30 years. The tests were given from January to March in 2020 and 2022.
Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the tests, told the Washington Post, “It’s clear that covid-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group.”
Did it really? Well, that’s what the White House and Democratic Party are trying to make you believe. But they’re not only trying to blame COVID for the lost school achievement. The Democrats are trotting out their favorite whipping boy, Donald Trump, to take the blame for the low test scores, which were obviously the result of schools being shut.
The Democrats don’t think very much of the American people’s intelligence. They’re counting on everyone to forget that Democratic mayors and radical Democratic teachers’ unions were behind the effort to keep schools closed.
In May of 2021, the most prominent teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers, objected when the CDC was preparing to publish guidance to reopen the schools. Incredibly, the Biden administration colluded with the AFT to keep the schools closed. By this time, it had been conclusively shown that children were at extremely low risk of getting seriously ill from COVID. But the teachers wanted to flex their political muscle.
The White House has gone to a full-court press to blame the former president for policies they enthusiastically backed. They sneered at Republicans who warned that closing the schools would keep students back.
And as far as Trump keeping the schools closed, as early as July of 2020, Trump was urging the schools to reopen to in-person instruction. He even threatened to cut funding for schools that remained closed.
But the White House PR machine — which got an advanced view of the terrible test scores — has formulated a PR strategy that includes trying to convince voters that up is down, black is white, and Biden and the Democrats championed opening the schools.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona chimed in with his part of the coordinated PR campaign. “Today’s data confirm the significant impact the prior Administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic has had on our children’s progress and academic wellbeing. That’s why President Biden, from Day One of his Administration, pushed so hard to get schools reopened and students back into classrooms,” he said in a statement.
