For decades, voters overwhelmingly trusted Democrats to determine education policy. But that changed during the covid-19 pandemic as the party squandered his 20-point advantage. Blue states and districts typically kept students in Zoom schools much longer than red states. Some education leaders have exaggerated the disaster this has wrought on learning and equity, even shamed advocates who have pointed out its impact.
Democrats need to acknowledge this and work hard to rectify it. Otherwise, we risk leaving our country and our schools in the hands of Republican activist trailblazers.
Republican lawmakers have won the trust, or at least sympathy, of many parents with their across-the-board, unified support to keep public schools open and operating as normally as possible during the covid-19 pandemic .
The Democratic Party, by contrast, was divided. While some parents were weary of the extended lockdown and mask mandates, others, particularly Black, Hispanic and Asian American families, remained more cautious. With notable exceptions, parents struggled to balance parental cliques, union demands, and changing public health directives. the kids lost.
Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis in Florida and Glenn Youngkin in Virginia seem to see education, and especially parental opinion, as an issue that can give them an edge with swing voters.
But if the Republican Party is predominantly in favor of keeping schools open and paying teachers enough to keep staff, party activists’ agenda is more radical.
They denigrated LGBTQ teachers as “groomers,” embraced book bans, dismantled curricula under the guise of “reverse racism” accusations, and attacked children who did not conform to narrow notions of gender roles.
The Communist Party has long promoted measures such as vouchers and home schooling under parent-choice rhetoric. But as think tanks such as the Cait Institute and the Heritage Foundation have articulated, their vision is to end the ‘monopoly’ of ‘public schools’. This ideological faction was boosted by his two Supreme Court rulings this summer. Together, these two rulings allowed trucks to drive through the wall that separated church and state in education, channel public funds to religious private schools, and allow prayer in public schools.
So how can Democrats regain power and reclaim their place as student advocates?
Across the political spectrum, parental support for their schools and teachers has remained strong for decades. This trend has led, as in the recent uproar in Tennessee, to Christian colleges adopting “patriotic” curricula when Republican governors and other conservative politicians mocked the intelligence of their teachers. It is reflected in incidents such as having to keep a distance from the president. at a private event. And schools and parents are pretty much aligned on what their priorities are now. That is, basics such as math, reading, science, and mental health.
Good news for Democrats. To regain the mantle of the Education Party, the party needs an apology tour and a renewed focus on the basics.
The first step is to expose how children have been harmed by prolonged school closures and stop shying away from words like “learning lost.”
Despite the natural fear and uncertainty, our fellow nations have all but succeeded in reopening schools by the fall of 2020, and it has proven relatively safe. It’s an outlier, both for the high number of deaths from the virus and for the period when millions of children are homeschooled.
The result is clear. The just-released “national report card” shows declining reading and math scores, erasing 20 years of progress in his two years.
Democrats sound insensitive when they downplay this impact, as Cecily Myart-Cruz, head of United Teachers Los Angeles, declared in an infamous interview last summer: They learned resilience. Instead, we must borrow the words of John Abeigon, President of the Newark Teachers’ Union. John Abeagon puts it bluntly that learning losses “can last for generations if not addressed now.”
And minority “open school” parents, Democrats, and ex-Democrats desperately want recognition for what they were right all along. They deserve it — and an apology from those who called their position racist.
After accounting is done, it’s time to fix it.
Voters need to hear clearly and often where the $122 billion the federal government has allocated to schools to fight COVID-19. Democrats need to distinguish between the Republican obsession of turning schools into ideological training grounds and the Democrats’ emphasis on learning the basics.
And to restore some degree of faith in education, Democrats may need to let some sunshine between themselves and the unions most publicly involved in extending school closures.
Republicans may have made headlines about education, but in the long run, Democrats have the right priorities. The party may have lost sight of their children’s best interests, but the public has not.
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