Nearly everyone realizes today that it was a mistake to close schools in the 2020-2021 school year. The harm to children and families from the school closures was massive and could be ongoing.
The COVID threat to students was far smaller than we all originally feared.
In the light of the devastating test results showing massive learning loss among 9-year-olds, the Biden administration is among those trying to attach themselves to the importance of opening schools.
When @POTUS took office, schools were closed. The former admin talked a lot but took no action. We had a plan to get teachers vaccinated, pass the American Rescue Plan, and focus on safely getting back to in-person learning. https://t.co/rc9ntU507T
— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) September 1, 2022
But in that very same light, it is crucial that the people who loudly advocated school closures in the summer of 2020 and later be held accountable. And President Joe Biden is one of the reasons schools were closed in the fall of 2020.
Check out this school-themed COVID-fearmongering 2020 campaign ad from Biden’s DNC, dated July 27. The entire point of the ad was that Trump was harming children by advocating schools open.
This ad attacks Trump on COVID — and Trump deserved attacks on COVID — but the DNC was focused mostly on Trump’s call to reopen schools in the fall. The theme of the ad is schooling. “This is not a test” is the ad’s title; it regularly leans on school hallways or classroom images.
The very midpoint of the ad attacks Trump as “desperate to open schools” only because he was “ignoring how the virus spreads, risking teachers’ and parents’ lives, going against the advice of experts.”
“Do you trust him to do what’s best for our children?” the ominous voice-over asks, showing a school hallway.
The Biden campaign was a leading voice for closing schools and attacking everyone who disagreed. It surely persuaded many local Democratic leaders to close schools and also persuaded many school parents that school was unsafe.
This last point is important because the best defense the school-closers have is that many parents themselves didn’t want to send their kids back to school. That defense is, in turn, a condemnation of those who unduly frightened parents — which, as you see in this ad, includes Biden’s Democratic National Committee.
One more thought on this: those rationalizing the extended school closures have noted rightly that many families were resistant to sending kids back to school well into 2021. This is correct. But it’s worth examining *why* families felt this way, what message they were getting…
— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) September 1, 2022
The timing of this ad was crucial. July 2020 was when closing schools and attacking would-be openers became a political cause.
On June 30, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out for opening schools. By mid-July, the AAP let the teachers unions change its recommendation.
Don’t blame COVID for what AAP and teachers unions did to kids. pic.twitter.com/Cs0Tnh9XZN
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 1, 2022
It was late July when my own county decided to close public schools for a semester and tried to close the private schools too.
Biden’s campaign was a big part of this campaign of fear. The learning loss our kids experienced — not to mention the social and emotional costs and the violence that followed — rests in part on Biden’s shoulders. He should explain this ad and apologize for it or admit that he was willing to harm families in order to scare people about Trump.
