Chris Lange, FISM News
A new report shows that eighth graders are flunking U.S. history and civics classes, providing fresh evidence of continued learning losses resulting from pandemic school closures.
The latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revealed that civics scores for eighth grade students fell from 153 in 2018 to 150 on a scale of 0-300, plunging to the lowest level since 1998, the year assessment on the subject began.
For U.S. history, scores fell from 263 in 2018 to 258 in 2023, the worst ever recorded, falling a point lower than the 259 recorded on the subject’s first assessment in 1994.
NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said the decline in civics and history education scores is a “national concern.”
“Self-government depends on each generation of students leaving school with a complete understanding of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship,” Carr said in a statement. “But far too many of our students are struggling to understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government functions, and the historical significance of events. These results are a national concern.”
The national scores are based on test scores from 8,000 public and private school students as a “representative sample” of the U.S. The data is collected every four years.
The NCES 2022 Nation’s Report Card revealed that COVID-19 lockdowns set U.S. education back decades. Low-income families and minorities who could not afford to send their kids to private schools or switch to homeschooling were impacted the most.
LOCKDOWNS IRREVOCABLY HARMED CHILDREN
FISM’s Lauren Dempsey has reported extensively on the widespread impact of COVID-19 health mandates on children.
A December 2022 study published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science found that forced isolation led to brain changes and increased mental illness among adolescents.
Between 5,500 and 8,000 cases of child abuse went unreported during the pandemic lockdowns, according to a study published in The Journal of Human Resources. The report noted that school closures prevented educators from reporting suspected abuse.
AFT CHIEF RANDI WEINGARTEN ACCUSED OF ‘REVISIONIST HISTORY’ FOR ROLE IN SCHOOL CLOSURES
In the face of irrefutable evidence that school closures harmed children, some of the draconian mandates’ loudest proponents have grudgingly acknowledged the negative impact of the policies but still refuse to accept any responsibility for the roles they played in creating and/or enforcing them.
American Federation of Teachers Union president Randi Weingarten has been accused of trying to rewrite history concerning her role in influencing public policy on school lockdowns. Weingarten insisted that AFT “spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.”
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin took exception to the claim.
“For Randi Weingarten to come out and say that they were trying to get schools open, well, let me tell you this: This is counter to anything people believe,” Youngkin told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo from the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills on Tuesday.
“They cannot spin their way out of this,” he added. “The teachers’ unions wanted the schools closed.”
“What we saw was what it did to children. Virginia’s is the absolute quintessential case. Schools were shut all the way through until the fall of September of 2021 and Virginia suffered the largest learning loss in fourth-grade reading and math in the country,” he said.
“A 12-inch screen is not a quality education. Parents know it. They know the truth,” Youngkin added.
Trump administration education secretary Betsy Devos told the network separately that Weingarten has failed at her attempt at “revisionist history.”