If you expect a post dealing with the upcoming mid-terms, forget it. With less than a week to go, if people continue to support the most incompetent administration since Buchanan, nothing I can say now will change minds. I’ve given chapter and verse of Biden and his friend’s ability to screw up everything. Either the administration, with the all-out support of its media allies, gets two more years of total government control or common sense prevails. With millions of people already voted, it’s time to move on. 

While not the central issue in this election, one problem is increasingly coming to the forefront, the utter failure of our public K-12 education system. Parents observed the performance of public school systems during the pandemic and didn’t care for what they saw. The lack of in-person learning and perceived indoctrination led Glenn Youngkin’s surprise gubernatorial win in Virginia. 

The N.A.E.P.’s national assessment confirmed the worst fears of parents. Our kid’s lost substantial ground during the pandemic. If not made up, kids not learning to read or do the math properly may never catch up. Of course, this deficit falls hardest among those already in challenging circumstances.

Learning loss is evident in those losing the most in-person schooling. Public schools, both traditional and charter, were more likely to be remote. On the other hand, Catholic and other private schools were mostly open. The latter group lost little, if any, ground: 

The Swedish experience shows school closures were unjustified and keeping them shut unnecessarily. The Swedes, following the data, refused to close their K-12 schools. This courageous stand resulted in no learning loss.