Pupils suffer from shutdown

Soon the 2023-24 school year will begin.

This will be the third school year after Gov. Jay Inslee and state public schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal imposed longer COVID-19 school shutdowns than most of the country. The shutdowns began in March of 2020, lasted the entire school year of 2020-21, and continued to interrupt schooling the fall of 2021.

Yet, last week, Reykdal published a piece on the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction website reporting students are “not behind,” but “gained a lot” from the mandated shutdowns:

Seriously? Students “gained a lot” from school shutdowns?

The text then weirdly contradicts this claim by admitting students are academically behind, but then asserts without evidence that “recovery is already happening,” providing students of George Orwell an excellent example of deceitful doublespeak.

The hard reality facing Washington public school students is that test scores show they are seriously behind – in the spring of 2022, 62% failed the state math test and 49% failed the state English test. Economists predict this COVID-19 harmed generation of students will have fewer education and career opportunities and earn significantly less income.

The COVID-19 school shutdowns are being blamed for current shortages of nurses, engineers, customer service representatives, seasonal workers, and army recruits.

A recent Wall Street Journal story notes that since 2020, the pass rates on certification exams taken by engineers, office workers, soldiers and nurses have all fallen. This means fewer engineers and other skilled workers on the job, and a lower degree of competency among those who make it:

These facts do not even begin to describe the psychological and mental distress suffered by teenagers isolated from their friends for nearly two years, a harm that may linger throughout their lives.

Parents aren’t fooled by the falsehoods being told by Washington’s school officials.

The families of 46,000 students have withdrawn their children from the public schools, among the highest out-migration from the public schools in the nation.

Across the country, lawmakers are trying to help parents. They are responding to the school shutdowns – and to the radical critical race theory agenda now in public schools – by passing school-choice programs to give parents an alternative.

Enlightened countries like Sweden already give parents that choice.

Lawmakers in America are now giving students the right to attend private school with public dollars.

In the last two years, the eight states of West Virginia, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, Florida and Oklahoma have passed universal school choice, providing between $4,300 and $8,400 per child to help all families send their children to private school. Thirty-two states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. offer direct aid to attend private school to families with special needs children, low-income families and families in failing public schools.

School choice is creating an exciting marketplace for private education innovators. Micro-schools, classical schools, forest schools and schools serving the learning needs of our pluralistic society are now cropping up all over the country.

Telling the public that students are “not behind” but “gained a lot” from Inslee-orderd school shutdowns gives families yet another reason to distrust public schools, and to leave for the private marketplace.

— Liv Finne is the Center for Education

director at the Washington Policy Center. Email her [email protected].