In a surprise to nearly no one, children’s reading and math scores have plummeted. National Assessment of Educational Progress, nicknamed “the nation’s report card,” results show the first-ever drop in math and the largest drop in reading in more than 30 years. Black children had an even bigger collapse in scores. Decades of educational progress undone. Poof.

Horrific. Stupid. Unnecessary.

We know the school closures did this. It wasn’t the COVID virus. It was the hyper-political reaction, from the left, on reopening schools during the pandemic.

The orders came from the top. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the directives. Kids had to be kept six feet apart in classrooms. Why? To this day, no one knows. It made no sense when implemented, since we knew the COVID virus was airborne, and it made even less sense when it arbitrarily switched it to three feet later in the 2021 school year.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, kept flipping back and forth on school opening before finally settling on the nakedly partisan position of arguing that President Biden’s spending plan must pass before schools could open. This was in February 2021, when schools around the country in places that didn’t live or die by his whims had been open for months.