Last month, the National Center for Education Statistics released data proving that school closures had a devastating impact on children’s mental health. Despite no apparent benefit in preventing the transmission of COVID-19, school closures caused a 70% increase in students seeking mental health services compared to before the pandemic. One study suggests that the excessive stress and anxiety caused by the lockdowns “will destroy at least seven times more years of human life than can possibly be saved by lockdowns to control the spread of the disease.” However, the study from the think tank Just Facts insists, “This figure is a bare minimum, and the actual one is likely more than 90 times greater.”
Other studies confirm the negative impact of the lockdowns and school closures. For example, nearly 1.3 million students left public schools since the start of the pandemic, and schools that stayed remote longer saw more of their students leave.
The responsibility belongs to Democrats and teachers’ unions, who ignored science or local health guidance to keep schools closed longer. “Altogether, we find little evidence that the reopening plans adopted by the nation’s 13,000+ school boards were linked to the public health conditions on the ground in their local community,” reports the study.
Related: Never Forget How Dems Exploited Fear at the Expense of our Kids
These leftists’ influence also went national. Although several studies indicated that masks weren’t necessary for schools, teachers’ unions lobbied the CDC to keep the mask mandates in schools. Then the CDC released a bogus study that claimed mask mandates were effective.
“School closures were always more about politics and power than safety and the needs of children,” Corey A. DeAngelis, a school choice advocate and the national director of research of the American Federation for Children, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Meanwhile private schools, daycares, grocery stores, and other businesses were able to figure it out from the get-go.”
Yet, the Democrats behind these destructive policies have faced no consequences for ignoring the science. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky coordinated heavily with teachers’ unions throughout her tenure. NEA president Becky Pringle was intent on opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to get kids back in school and was an advocate for mandatory vaccinations for kids to resume in-person learning. Perhaps worst of all is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who shut down public schools while sending his own kids to in-person learning at a private school.
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