Congressional findings regarding school shutdowns and the AFT
The House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has issued a 550 page report summarizing the findings from their two years of investigation
Published by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on December 2, 2024, this is the single most thorough review of US Federal pandemic policies and consequences conducted to date.
The report has had modest, passing coverage by corporate media.
Malone.News has previously published the House Select Committee press release summarizing the report, and an essay focusing on the role of the World Health Organization and its Director-General in acting to bias both fact finding activities and global public policy decisions to favor the interests of the People’s Republic of China and its leadership the Central Communist Party.
Another underreported story documented in detail by the Select Committee’s report involves the role of the second largest US Teachers’ union (the American Federation of Teachers), and specifically the role of AFT President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten in advocating, promoting, lobbying for, and influencing CDC policies unsupported by scientific evidence that directly lead to widespread, substantial, and long-lasting damage to both US Children and to the overall US public education enterprise.
Furthermore, on the basis of the Select Subcommittee findings, it seems reasonable that AFT and its President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten should be held legally and financially liable for the damages incurred by US families and children consequent to the actions of the AFT and its President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten in these matters.
The sections of the report covering these issues include the following:
The Societal Impact of Decisions to Close Schools, How the Decisions Were Made and Whether There is Evidence of Widespread Learning Loss or Other Negative Effects as a Result of These Decisions
- COVID-19 Pandemic-Era School Closures (report pages 411-414)
- The American Federation of Teachers’ Influence (report pages 415-437)
- The Harmful Impacts from School Closures (report pages 438-442)
Not covered in these sections but covered elsewhere in the report are the substantial harms to children, including educational harms, particularly in young children, attributable to unscientifically supported masking policies.
Harms to Children from Federal Policies aggressively lobbied for by the AFT
So, what were the harms caused by the school closure policies that the AFT and its lawyer/President aggressively lobbied for? According to the committee findings, these included:
- Pandemic-era School Closures Adversely Impacted Academic Performance that Will Continue for Years.
- School Closures Significantly Contributed to Increased Instances of Mental and Behavioral Health Issues.
- School Closures Made an Already Alarming Trend in Declining Physical Health Worse.
- Despite the evidence of incredibly low morbidity among children, students were not given the benefit of balanced policy.
It is clear that the actions of the AFT and its President have substantially harmed American children and students, resulting in avoidable lifelong psychological, financial, physical, and educational damages.
Acting out of irrational, unscientific fear, the AFT and its President clearly placed the interests of its membership over and above the interests of American children and students.
Going forward, school boards and responsible teachers should shun or defund the AFT and its lobbying activities and should demand the resignation of its current President, Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten.
Quoting from the report:
The decision to close schools had predictable, but disastrous consequences for students’ academics and mental and physical health. While the full scope of negative consequences of school closures is likely incalculable, certain adverse effects are documented.
The evidence makes it clear that any public health response that warrants closing schools should face the highest levels of scrutiny. School closure policy should be informed by science and data, not fear and politics.
Pandemic-era School Closures Adversely Impacted Academic Performance that Will Continue for Years
There has been a significant decline in students’ academic performance because of pandemic-era school closure policies. Standardized test scores show that children lost decades worth of academic progress.
The performance of 9-year-olds in math and reading declined to levels recorded two decades ago, and the average composite score for the ACT by high school graduates dropped below 20 for the first time since 1991.
The students whose classes were less disrupted in the 2020-2021 school year lost about 20 percent of math learning compared to losses of 50 percent for students who did not have access to in-person instruction.
Disturbingly, these declines were the most significant among low-income children and children from racial minorities. Schools in urban areas attended by low income and minority children were kept closed longer.
Accordingly, Black and Latino students and low-income students fell further behind in learning than their peers.
The effects of pandemic-era school closure policies continue to impact students today. Students are not rebounding from the effect of the school closure policies: “Analyses of student test scores have repeatedly shown severe declines in academic achievement… accelerating student learning… is notoriously challenging.”
More troubling than students’ inability to “catch up” with where they should be academically, though, is the fact that the problem is growing worse: “except for the youngest learners, students are progressing more slowly than their pre-pandemic peers – furthering widening academic gaps.”
Many students never returned to public schools following prolonged pandemic-era school closures. While many students were enrolled in private schools, an estimated 230,000 students have simply “disappeared” from public schools since the pandemic closed schools.
According to Eric Hanushek, an economist at the Hoover Institution, pandemic-era students could lose an estimated $70,000 in lifetime income. These losses are estimated to be two to nine percent of lifetime earnings, depending on the state they live and the severity of school closures.
As a result of a lower-skilled workforce, states are estimated to have 0.6 to 2.9 percent lower gross domestic product (GDP), as total societal losses could amount to $28 trillion over the century.
The fact that these children had the poor fortune of being children during a global pandemic has only been exacerbated by pandemic-era school closure policies.
While initial government action erring on the side of caution in response to a novel pandemic is a sensible course of action, the failure to adjust to current data and understanding of COVID-19 cost these students valuable time inside of the classroom.
Again, the complete scope of academic loss is impossible to measure. However, the data is clear enough to display that these policies had a significant adverse impact on education.
School Closures Significantly Contributed to Increased Instances of Mental and Behavioral Health Issues
During the pandemic, rates of psychological distress among students, including anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems, significantly increased. Among other things, these mental health issues can be attributed to pandemic-era school closure policies, which isolated students from their peers, restricted sports and other extracurricular activities, and led to excessive screen time.
Initially, school closures primarily impacted students with pre-existing mental conditions. Many of these students lost access to critical mental health resources usually available through school. As the pandemic progressed, however, these mental health issues broadened to affect all students.
In 2021, according to CDC data, 37 percent of high school students reported experiencing poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 44 percent reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year compared to 36.7 percent in 2019.
Suicide attempts increased sharply for adolescents with suicide attempts by 12- to 17-year-old girls rising 51 percent from early 2019 to early 2021.
A 2021 NIH study acknowledged that COVID-19 related disruptions to everyday life led to increases in anxiety and depression, which in turn led teens to self-medicate. As a result, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a warning, and the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health.
Reports have shown that for “children between the ages of 11 and 17, additional weeks of home schooling in the early months of the pandemic correlated with worsening mental health measures.”
This study found that “younger children were more adversely affected,” a troubling, yet again predictable, consequence of the isolation of the most vulnerable of the population.
The data are clear that prologued school closures had an adverse effect on the mental health of students. Science shows that the prolonged closures had negative effects. When science showed that the shutdowns were no longer necessary, policies should have acted to mitigate the harm done.
School Closures Made an Already Alarming Trend in Declining Physical Health Worse
Pandemic-era school closure policies not only affected academics and students’ mental health, but also had negative consequences on their physical health. As with students’ academic performance and mental health, the adverse physical effects were predictable; prolonged school closures had a measured impact on students’ physical health.
Among other things, in-person schooling provides students with access to nutritious lunches and regularly scheduled physical activity, including exercise classes, sports, and other extracurricular activities.
As a result of school closures, physical activity significantly decreased and sedentary behavior, including but not limited to watching television, playing video games, and using the computer, increased.
Accordingly, the rate of BMI increases for children ages 2-19 approximately doubled from pre-pandemic rates. The number of new cases of Type 2 diabetes among children during the first year of the pandemic increased 182 percent from pre-pandemic levels. These increases disproportionately affected black youth.
It should come as no shock that isolation is not healthy, in any respect, for people—let alone children. The results of prolonged school closures have exacerbated physical health issues while simultaneously hampering activities that would otherwise mitigate those issues, such as communal sport and exercise, and a healthy diet.
Generally, the immune system benefits from physical activity. It is well established that accelerated weight gain and obesity can cause long-term metabolic changes that increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, mental health issues, and diabetes, as well as complications with subsequent morbidity and premature mortality, for children. During the pandemic, studies showed that obese children were more likely to suffer severe respiratory complications as a result of COVID-19.
Yet again, warnings from scientists, and the common sense understanding that isolation is bad for a child, were largely unheeded by policymakers. A February 2021 preprint of a study (finally published in January 2022) found negative health impact on children due to school closures, and warned of already troubling data that would only compound if closures continued:
Available data are short-term and longer-term harms are likely to be magnified by further school closures. Data are urgently needed on longer-term impacts using strong research designs, particularly amongst vulnerable groups. These findings are important for policymakers seeking to balance the risks of transmission through school-aged children with the harms of closing schools.
Despite the evidence of incredibly low morbidity among children, students were not given the benefit of balanced policy
The American Federation of Teachers’ Influence
AFT is not a scientific organization—it does not employ epidemiologists or immunologists.
Instead, it is a political union—committed to activism on behalf of its 1.7 million members—that donated $2.4 million dollars to Democrat candidates during the 2020 election cycle.
The extent of the AFT’s political influence is reflected in the fact that the Biden Administration reached out to AFT for advice on school reopening rather than the AFT reaching out to the Biden Administration.
In a letter to the Select Subcommittee on April 19, 2023, AFT disputed the notion that it had “no scientific expertise.” However, Ms. Weingarten admitted in her testimony before the Select Subcommittee that they did not employ any epidemiologists or immunologists.
The fact that AFT is not a scientific organization is supported by its own employees.
Accordingly, “AFT was out of its league” in representing that it had scientific expertise and making policy-based scientific interpretations and recommendations throughout the pandemic.
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