Our ruling politicians succumbed to the pressure of the teachers’ unions to keep our schools closed for extended periods due to the pandemic. While the early shutdowns were understandable, our healthcare and elected leaders failed to adapt to the additional information coming forward.
Children were at extremely low risk (and transmission to teachers was also very low), yet school shutdowns caused tremendous dislocation to them. Students lost valuable time that will probably never be made up and will put us at a competitive disadvantage moving forward.
And how are our elected leaders compensating for this? The answer: They are lowering standards for passing. The Times Union (Albany, NY) notes:
New York will change what it takes for students to reach “proficiency” on state math and English language arts tests, calling last year’s lower scores the “new normal.”
Last year some schools posted shocking results — in Schenectady, no eighth grader who took the math test scored as proficient. And the scores for the third through eighth grade tests throughout the state were much lower in 2022 than in 2019, a result no doubt of the absence of in-person learning during the first year and beyond of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-lowers-bar-student-math-english-17841120.php
What was supposed to be a temporary induction in the grading requirements is now becoming the new normal. Check out these articles which show that the lowered standards implemented during Covid are now being codified into perpetuity.
https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/nys-education-leaders-again-prove-to-be-anti-education/
Is it any wonder why America is being bypassed in academic performance by so many other nations?