Tuesday 6 September 2022 07:44 PM I was smeared as a 'grandma killer' for refusing to subject kids to Covid ... trends now
Bethany Mandel is the editor of the children's book publisher Heroes of Liberty
America's kids are not okay and it's America's adults who hurt them.
In May of 2020, I was just one of the millions of parents – on the political right, left and center – who begged policymakers to weigh the potential benefits of our draconian pandemic mitigation measures against the potential harms.
I was canceled and smeared as a 'Grandma Killer' on Twitter for refusing to sacrifice the quality of my children's lives to protect vulnerable adults.
But I resisted.
I would not lock my kids down inside our home for irrational fear of Covid, and I was proven right. Today my kids are thriving; something few parents in liberal regions of the country can say.
My local elementary school, which my children would have attended if they weren't homeschooled, has seen the math scores for 3rd graders drop from 38.7% proficient in 2019, to 5.6% in 2021.
The reading scores or ELA (English Language Arts) scores dropped from an already dismal 26.7% in 2019 to 7.5% in 2021.
Nationally, the test results are also bleak, according to the 'Nation's Report Card,' conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.
I was canceled and smeared as a 'Grandma Killer' on Twitter for refusing to sacrifice the quality of my children's lives to protect vulnerable adults. (Above) Author, Bethany Mandel with her family
Math and reading scores for 9-year-olds, the children who were half through their first-grade year when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, fell off a cliff during the first two years of the pandemic.
The survey is the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of school lockdown policies and it's gut-wrenching.
Math and reading scores for 9-year-olds, the children who were half through their first-grade year when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, fell off a cliff during the first two years of the pandemic.
Kids testing in the top 90th percentile dropped three points in math. Students in the bottom 10th percentile showed a 12-point decline.
The average reading score was down five points – the largest decrease in 30 years.
As a homeschooler, my children were always better positioned to learn during a crisis. But there was a trickle-down effect for them as well as public school policies were adopted by many of their extra-curricular activites.
This approach failed everyone.
It's sickening and it didn't have to happen.
Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told the New York Times that she was, 'taken aback by the scope and the magnitude of the decline.'
You want to know who wasn't surprised?
Former President Donald Trump.
Trump was explicit about the cost of school closures in the summer of 2020, as he fought to reopen the schools, faced with the opposition of the progressive establishment in government and media, in addition to the teachers' unions.
'According to McKinsey and Company, learning loss will probably be greatest among low-income Black and Hispanic students,' he explained during a news conference. 'They're the ones that are hit the hardest. We don't want that happening.'
Lo and behold – Trump was right.
While math scores for white students fell 5 points, the scores for black students
dropped by 13 points and for hispanic students by 8 points.
So, what may be
