Educrats Teach Kids School Is Trivial
THE Biden administration Wednesday announced its plan to attack the latest education scourge: chronic absenteeism. “We cannot and will not accept that as a new normal,” the White House said, referring to double-digit truancy rates.
Two days later, Washington and surrounding suburbs once again showed students how important the adults really think school is: They canceled classes for no reason.
“DC Public Schools will be closed,” Mayor Muriel Bowser abruptly announced Friday morning. The nominal reason was snow.
But it didn’t snow much. DC got fewer than four inches, which fell calmly and steadily through the afternoon. There were no wind or visibility problems; it wasn’t bitterly cold.
Even with the district’s casual approach to plowing and even without heavy-duty winter gear, roads and sidewalks were perfectly passable by car and on foot. Nor was this a “better safe than sorry” fizzled-out forecast: It was never supposed to snow very much.
The local government’s decision to close schools left more than 50,000 students — most of them black or Hispanic, half of them “at risk,” according to various government homeless and welfare criteria — home, many alone, with nothing to do. (The district didn’t even pretend kids would do “remote learning.”)
The closures left parents and grandparents with no child care, though we keep hearing how important child care is. And it was the second snow day in a week, meaning that after the MLK holiday Monday, kids who need to get on a normal schedule after the Christmas break had just two days of school last week.
Even as DC closed schools Friday, it made it clear the adults would go on with their important business.
The rest of the DC government was open as normal (as it was last week’s first snow day). The federal government had a two-hour delay. Museums, stores and restaurants were open on time. The city was quiet, but it wasn’t empty.
The March for Life, with its tens of thousands of attendees from out of town and attendant security needs and media coverage, went on. The House speaker and other members of Congress spoke at the outdoor rally. The anti-abortion marchers made it clear by being there in person: We think what we are doing matters.
By contrast, once again, the school-bureaucracy adults, while pretending school is important, demonstrated to children — through their actions, not words — school isn’t that important.
Children have already absorbed this lesson. Last school year, 43% of DC students missed 10% or more of school days, up from a not-sogreat 30% before COVID.
As in the rest of the country, after missing 18 months of school starting in March 2020, kids without solid support systems at home got out of the habit of going to school. Chronic absenteeism nationwide is about 28%, double pre-pandemic levels.
If you don’t go to school, you don’t learn much: The White House estimates chronic absenteeism is responsible for a quarter to nearly half of the recent cratering of math and reading test scores. But it’s not just that.
A failure to keep kids to a normal schedule has resulted in more teen depression, antisocial behavior and crime. Last year, Washington murders hit a quarter-century high, with 274 killed; 16 victims were children.
Teens and young adults, who were teens during the pandemic, are responsible for a huge uptick in carjackings, robberies and assaults as well.
Yes, suburban school and private schools also closed Friday — and no, that’s not good either. Whether rich or poor, white or black, kids have learned over the past four years that adult bureaucracies really don’t care what happens to them.
But middle-class and wealthier kids have more nongovernment resources. If you attend Sidwell Friends, where former President Barack Obama’s daughters went, your parents probably found something for you to do or someone to watch you Friday.
The Biden administration can lament low attendance and brag about the billions it has directed to school districts to help combat it. The fancy ideas are home visits, “high-dose tutoring” and more summerschool and after-school programs.
Here’s one idea: Make school districts keep the schools open, every day, absent a declaration of national disaster or lose a lot of federal funding as punishment.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.