For the uninitiated, ProPublica is a leftist publication that has been heavily involved in the swirl of weak, swing-and-miss hit pieces about supposed 'ethics scandals' involving (exclusively conservative) Supreme Court justices. It is therefore not an outfit that's generally sympathetic to right-wing narratives, to put it mildly. But sometimes evidence of cause-and-effect harm is so abundant and conclusive, it's more or less impossible to spin. Those (almost entirely on the Left) who have attempted such spin about disastrous, extended school closures during COVID (enforced most fanatically in blue jurisdictions dominated by Democrats and teachers unions) have resorted to one of three 'arguments.' The first is just outright lying about what they did, in the brazen style of union boss Randi Weingarten.
The next is throwing up their hands and crying 'fog of war.' While that may have been a valid excuse for a few months in the spring of 2020, data from around the country and world very quickly pointed strongly against school shutdowns. Pretending that 'no one' could have known what the right move was, or anticipated the deleterious effects month after month of "virtual learning would have on children" is audacious revisionism:
A lot of people foresaw it and were energetically maligned by those who didn’t. Maybe those who didn’t foresee this very obvious thing and went to great lengths to shut up those who did shouldn’t be in charge of public health. https://t.co/iCQKqutc3d
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 4, 2023
...or in charge of public schools, I'd add. The third approach is to vaguely concede that mistakes were made, but to insist that it's time to "move forward" and that there's no point in endless recriminations. But learning from mistakes requires accountability and owning up to them. Have we seen any of that, really? Weingarten's influence is undiminished within her political tribe, and the party of lockdowns and closures suffered precious few electoral consequences for their horrendous policies. The Biden administration's unqualified HHS Secretary is still defending masking toddlers. Many of the key decision-makers have made it clear that they have no regrets and would do it all again. Some are still criticizing Republican governors for not locking down harder, even now. They've flashed this arrogance and ambivalence even as it's becoming more undeniable than ever that enormous, needless, anti-science damage was done to millions of American kids. And the 'equity' obsessives are the prime culprits in this:
“data generally show that…shortcomings are the greatest in districts that were slowest to reopen schools…the falloff was far greater among Black and Hispanic students than among whites and Asians, expanding disparities that had been gradually shrinking” https://t.co/btuUkLwN12
— Justin Sayfie (@JustinSayfie) July 8, 2023
How can the adults responsible for these catastrophic decisions demand that everyone just move on, when the harm they've wrought is serious and lasting? Especially considering the disproportionate toll those decisions are having on the demographics they purport to champion? Of course, many of the most negatively impacted students were in districts and cities where public schools had already been dramatically underperforming for generations. And the pro-closure/let's move on crowd is broadly comprised of the same people who also staunchly oppose school choice. So the spiral keeps spiraling. One of the few high-profile Democrats to buck the trend, or so it seemed, is Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, an up-and-comer who campaigned on school choice. He won a lopsided victory against a fringe GOP opponent in 2022. But Shapiro is rumored to have presidential ambitions, so at the first opportunity to fulfill his promise, he fled. From a withering Wall Street Journal editorial:
So much for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s gutsy support for school choice. After backing a Senate proposal for school vouchers for K-12 students—one of his 2022 campaign promises—the Democratic Governor caved this week to his party and the unions and will nix the scholarships from the state budget. “We stand at an impasse largely over one provision of this budget,” Gov. Shapiro said in a Wednesday statement, adding that Democratic House Majority Leader Matthew Bradford “has made clear” the vouchers do not have “the support of the House.” Mr. Bradford has only a one-seat majority but nearly all Republicans back vouchers. Rather than keep the pressure on, Gov. Shapiro gave Democrats cover by promising to kill the scholarships with his line-item veto. What an embarrassing surrender. The $100 million scholarship plan would have helped lower-income students in the state’s worst-performing district schools find other education options.
Students in K-8 would have received $5,000, high-schoolers $10,000, and special-needs students $15,000 vouchers for private school tuition and related expenses. EdChoice polling finds that 63% of Pennsylvania residents support school vouchers...Why did Mr. Shapiro sell out? His excuse about the Democratic Legislature doesn’t wash since he should be at the height of his political clout and he only needed to turn a vote or two in his own party. The more likely reason is that he was squeezed by the teachers unions. The Governor has presidential ambitions, and passing school choice would have put him on Randi Weingarten’s enemies list. The Governor hasn’t renounced his support for school choice, but what matters is what he does in office. Mr. Shapiro has covered his political posterior at the expense of the most vulnerable children in the state.
The governor received a wave of plaudits from conservatives for appearing to stand behind his alleged position on this issue, but I withheld praise in favor of a 'wait and see' approach. Well now we've waited, and we've seen. Shapiro still claims to support the program, but he's failed his first big test, refusing to buck his party's deep-pocketed benefactors or exert leadership to move a handful of votes within his own party -- despite good-faith negotiations and concessions from Republicans in Harrisburg. Maybe he'll get there, but he gets zero credit until and unless he actually does. School choice is popular and has momentum because it works. But entrenched, selfish, political special interests will fight it tooth and nail, at every step. Elites in the political and media classes wring their hands constantly about the erosion of public trust in institutions, and an apparent diminishment in reverence for the truth itself. They diagnose this as a problem driven by, and afflicting, partisans they dislike -- but they are a driving force behind the problem:
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This is an absolutely extraordinary passage in a NYT article from yesterday about the court ruling against the govt's right to suppress speech on social media
— David Zweig (@davidzweig) July 6, 2023
It cites a correct statement as evidence of a judge referring to a "debunked claim"https://t.co/DgDiCEFEPT pic.twitter.com/mfWVD6n2yb
And yet the smug posture of nearly all of the left-leaning ruling class to all of this is: No regrets, let's move on. And if you've got a problem with that, what are you going to do about it? Then they'll lecture us about truth, science, equity, and the children.
