Closing schools for a year was a disastrous mistake. It caused massive learning loss, sparked a crime wave, increased childhood and adolescent anxiety, and accelerated the dissolution of community in America.
So it makes sense that everyone wants to blame other people for school closures. Liberal blogger Matt Yglesias took to social media this week to try to exonerate the liberal establishment.
He has some points on his side. Yglesias, the New York Times editorial board, and other big liberal names such as Chris Hayes at MSNBC did go on the record in favor of reopening schools in the fall of 2020. If you look at their readers’ crazed reactions to this idea, you know these liberals stuck their necks out to do the right thing, and they deserve credit.
But Yglesias’s claim is far too broad. The reason so many schools were closed for so long was that many corners of the liberal elite insisted they be closed. Here are three of the guilty parties.
1. Liberal city and county governments and school boards
When assessing blame for school closures, you simply have to start with the folks who closed the schools: Democratic mayors, county executives, and county health czars, along with liberal school boards.
They are certainly the liberal establishment. They are powerful people and liberal people.
In the county where I lived in 2020 and 2021, the county council and the county Department of Health and Human Services made lockdowns explicitly political. They rejected guidance from the state government because one state official served in the Trump administration. They posited that the desire to keep schools open was grounded in white supremacy.
2. The Democratic Party
In the summer of 2020, the Democratic National Committee ran an attack ad against President Donald Trump for saying schools should open.
3. The public health establishment
Famously, the public health establishment incinerated its credibility in the summer of 2020 when it said that while outdoor church services were too dangerous under any circumstances, left-wing protests were actually good.
INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR K STREET
But on school closures, the public health establishment also brought shame on itself. The American Academy of Pediatrics, after saying clearly that schools should reopen in fall 2020, changed its mind because Trump agreed with them and the teachers unions objected.
So if you narrow the “liberal elite” down to the New York Times editorial board, then they come out looking good on school closures. But a more thorough approach shows that the liberal elites were the prime offenders in ruining so many childhoods.