Plunging test scores latest negative impact of the reckless choice to shut down the country
By Gary Abernathy
Closed schools will hinder students for their entire lives
Among the too-many-to-count adverse side effects of unnecessarily shutting down our country during the Covid pandemic is the disservice to students in ways that will likely last a lifetime.
The Washington Post reported this week:
National test scores plummeted for 13-year-olds, according to new data that shows the single largest drop in math in 50 years and no signs of academic recovery following the disruptions of the pandemic.
Student scores plunged nine points in math and four points in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often regarded as the nation’s report card. The release Wednesday reflected testing in fall 2022, comparing it to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic began.
“These results show that there are troubling gaps in the basic skills of these students,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers the tests. The new data, she said, “reinforces the fact that recovery is going to take some time.”
The shutdown was a result of elected leaders putting states and the country in the hands of “medical experts” who really didn’t know enough about Covid to make intelligent recommendations, as well as not considering people’s ability and right to make their own risk assessments and choices. By forfeiting their duty to lead, politicians created new avenues of depression and despair, put millions of Americans out of work and cost our economy $14 trillion and counting, which led to socialist-style governing and spending. As I pointed out in a Post column back in March of 2020:
But the snowball started rolling, state by state. One directive led to the next. Millions were ordered home, where they wait for their government to tell them it’s okay to come out. Without a doubt, some parts of the country were hit harder and needed to take stronger measures. But a one-size-fits-all mentality was disastrous, and we are only beginning to explore more nuanced ideas for mitigating the risk to seniors and others who are at heightened risk. In recent days, Trump has indicated he might soon reverse course and lift federal restrictions. It’s already too late. The economy can’t be turned on and off like a light switch.
We live in a world where politicians of both parties promise no pain and no consequences. That includes the president. As the push for a big intervention began, Trump vowed that hourly wage workers were “not going to miss a paycheck” and “don’t get penalized for something that’s not their fault.”
In real life, bad things happen to us that aren’t our fault, but we still have to find a way, usually on our own, to cope and recover. Only in the land of make-believe that is our government would anyone think that no one would miss a paycheck no matter how many businesses were closed or jobs were lost. Airlines and the hospitality industry can be rescued. Businesses large and small can get bailouts or low-interest loans. Millions of Americans will receive $1,200 checks, maybe multiple times. …
…For months, the rising influence of big-government liberals such as Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has caused many Democrats to worry that their nominee would be vulnerable to the label “socialist.” They should no longer be concerned. We are all socialists now.
Closing schools and forcing children to stay home or in other remote environments led to cataclysmic declines in classroom participation, as countless children did not have access to online learning, or have parents or guardians who made sure they participated in such remote daily classroom activities. Even those who did participate did not receive the level of instruction that happens in person.
From the Post: “‘These latest results provide additional evidence of the scale, the pervasiveness and the persistence of the learning loss American students experienced as a result of the pandemic,’” said Martin West, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and member of the governing board.”
Unnecessarily shutting down the country — rather than taking a more targeted approach to mitigating Covid — is one of the biggest national disasters in U.S. history. It changed the country for the worse in ways from which it may never fully recover.
And the Oscar for Most Diverse Cast for a Story Centered On An Underrepresented Community goes to...
In recent years the Academy Awards organization has succumbed to criticism that its award winning movies, performances and technical achievements did not honor enough minorities. The last couple of award ceremonies have made it clear that the Academy was paying attention, as the Oscar trophies were clearly targeted more toward winning glowing headlines about diversity than honoring the best performances, direction or technical achievements.
For example, this year’s awards brought headlines along these lines: “Oscars 2023 may go down in history as the most Asian-dominated Academy Awards ever.” Mission accomplished.
What many have suspected the Academy of doing the last couple of years has been making sure to distribute awards based more on checking diversity boxes than on recognizing the achievement of the most talented actors, actresses and filmmakers regardless of race or gender. If there was any doubt about that, the Academy is erasing it for us. Here are the new “Best Picture” rules for the Oscars going forward, as reported by The Hill:
Starting in 2024, films must meet specific diversity requirements in order to be eligible for the best picture award, which is Hollywood’s most sought-after accolade. The new guidelines include requirements like at least one actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group being in a significant role or the story must center on women, LGBTQ people, a racial group or disabled people.
Actor Richard Dreyfuss’s comments in the story are worth reading.
Goodbye, meaningful Oscars.
Hunter Biden charges & cushy deal not a good look
The announcement Tuesday that Hunter Biden had reached a plea deal with the Justice Department will do little to alter the perception that the DOJ is playing politics.
First, the deal was announced in coordination with the filing of charges, making it clear that there was close communication both on what the charges would be and on the guilty plea. Second, after five years of investigation there are much bigger questions lingering about payments that were made and clear references to the involvement of “the big guy” that are in no way put to bed.
Constitutional attorney Jonathan Turley summed it nicely:
You know, for the average citizen, when it came to Trump, they rolled out a B52, and this is going to look like a crop duster that, you know, that is you have the son of the president who's at the center of one of the greatest influence-peddling scandals in history. And that's saying a lot in Washington, D.C. And he's going to walk away with a couple of misdemeanors and a gun charge that they can likely expunge. That's not going to sit well.
It’s unclear whether this is the final word, or whether there might be more to come. If it’s the former, it plays into the notion that the playing field is unfairly tilted.
Trump indictment column brought strong reactions
After former president Donald Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury, I wrote a piece for the Washington Post arguing that indicting Trump was bad for the country.
Let’s be clear: There’s no good excuse for Trump holding onto classified documents, especially after the government demanded their return. But it’s not in Trump’s psyche to do what’s logical or easy. We know this. He takes every confrontation as a personal challenge. It’s what some people love about him, and what has so exhausted the rest of us.
But let’s also be clear about this: Bringing charges related to the possession of classified documents against a current or former president for anything short of colluding with our enemies or selling them on the black market is unnecessary, unwise and destructive to democracy. It will exacerbate our political polarization and dominate the daily news cycle much like the Russian collusion hysteria of Trump’s first two years in office. No one can be looking forward to that. …
…Trump’s hubris regarding classified material is another reason — on top of his refusal to acknowledge his 2020 election loss — for Republicans to look elsewhere for their 2024 standard-bearer. This episode is a stark reminder that should he regain the White House, Trump’s penchant for personal drama will always sidetrack opportunities for real accomplishment.
But Trump’s fate should be decided by voter not the Biden Justice Department — or the courts.
I enjoyed discussing — and debating — the column on various programs. First up was a conversation with Dan Abrams on NewsNation. Check it out below.
I also enjoyed debating the subject on The Morning Rush show on the Scripps TV network. If the link hasn’t expired, you can check that out here. Then, Bob Frantz of WHK 1420 in Cleveland had me on to dig into the indictment story. You can find it streaming here.
On the Post’s website, the column drew more than 16,000 comments, and my email inbox was flooded with (mostly outraged) readers telling me why I was wrong.
People enjoy claiming that no one should be above the law. What they really mean is they adamantly want Trump to be prosecuted — because the fact is, Americans of all stripes often escape prosecution for things for which they could be held legally accountable and even jailed.
A few short years ago, PolitiFact looked into a claim that “more than 70 percent of American adults have committed a crime that could lead to imprisonment,” determining that “based on a strictly technical reading of existing laws, the consensus among the legal experts we reached is that the number is reasonable. Way more than a majority of Americans have done something in their lives that runs afoul of some law that includes jail or prison time as a potential punishment.”
PolitiFact concluded, “That said, experts acknowledged that the likelihood of arrest, prosecution or imprisonment is exceedingly low for many of Americans’ ‘crimes.’”
So when Trump’s critics are claiming that if he broke the law he must be charged, they really don’t want to carry that reasoning to its logical conclusion. They really just want it applied to Trump.
The concern many are expressing for the potential harm to national security is likewise evidence of a double standard, especially from anyone who uses the mocking “But her emails!” retort when the Hillary Clinton email case is invoked.
Former FBI director James Comey said, in regard to Clinton and the probe into her private email server, "From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification.”
But there were no charges for Clinton, despite experts concluding that foreign countries almost certainly hacked her emails.
The leading cable ‘news’ channels don’t focus on news
In my latest WaPo piece that dropped Tuesday, I lament the fact that Chris Licht’s efforts to turn CNN into a straight news channel failed miserably — and was doomed to that fate from the start.
Licht’s ouster provided the perfect object lesson. It was precipitated by CNN’s Trump town hall, which was condemned for “platforming” the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination. But what really seemed to upset the critics was that Trump is too good at what he does. He controls live television events more effectively than any other politician. And because of his endless lies, the theory goes, he cannot be trusted to address the American people unfiltered.
Trump tells some whoppers, most notably that fraud cost him reelection. In fact, during Trump’s presidency, The Post famously documented 30,573 prevarications, differentiating between outright lies and more nuanced “misleading claims,” the latter of which, to be fair, were often consistent with the spin heard from most presidents. Since no one has kept a detailed “lie count” for other commanders in chief, we’ll never have a precise comparison.
Nevertheless, the trope of Trump as liar extraordinaire has provided some cable news types with an argument to aggressively challenge him — even argue with him — rather than merely interview him. In truth, Americans are smart enough to sniff out lies if they’re interested in independent thinking. If they’re not, no level of real-time fact-checking will persuade them. But in today’s cable news landscape, reporters are expected to serve as avatars for their respective partisan audiences.
Trump didn’t break journalism. Journalism broke itself by wrongly insisting that new rules were needed to cover Trump. The old rules would work just fine, if they were properly practiced.
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