The left closed schools, failed kids — and now sues to block choice



Democrats closed schools unnecessarily during COVID. Five years later, test scores continue to plummet. And now, unions and their allies oppose school choice with even greater intensity than ever.

This hostility toward parental choice has been the Democrat stance for decades, but since 2019 the consequences have become unmistakable. The numbers are in, and they are damning.

Red states emphasized learning; blue states kowtowed to union demands.

The first National Assessment of Educational Progress report since the pandemic shows American high-school seniors graduating in 2024 performed worse than their 2019 peers in both math and reading.

Seniors scoring at or above the “proficient” level dropped from 37% to 35% in reading and from 24% to 22% in math. The number of seniors failing even “basic” math climbed from 40% to 45%, while those below the basic reading level rose from 30% to 32%.

As The 74, an education-focused outlet, reported: COVID “took a bite out of already declining basic skills” and left seniors “reading and doing math worse than any senior class of the past generation.”

The class of 2024 spent nearly four years under lockdowns, masks, remote learning, and chronic absenteeism. By March 25, 2020, every public school in the country was closed, locking out 50.8 million students.

Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, in “In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us,” described these closures as “the most extensive and lengthy disruption to education in history.”

Unions kept classrooms shut

What Macedo and Lee underplay is the role of the American Federation of Teachers and its president, Randi Weingarten.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded in its final report that many schools “remained closed because of AFT and Ms. Weingarten’s political interference” in the Biden administration’s reopening guidance.

That interference persisted despite mounting evidence that children were at low risk for serious illness and transmitted the virus less than adults. Early reports from Iceland and even the World Health Organization’s initial findings from Wuhan confirmed as much.

Instead of leading America’s schools back to normal operations, the AFT insisted that closures remain the default. The result: The U.S. more closely resembled developing nations than its advanced democratic peers.

The establishment’s response

Faced with the lowest test scores in a generation, the education establishment has not offered reform. Instead, it calls for more unions.

The 74 reported earlier this month that school administrator unions have expanded since COVID, with 11 new locals across eight states. It also noted strikes and strike threats in Washington state and Philadelphia, along with lawsuits from teachers’ unions trying to block school voucher programs as unconstitutional.

In short, the very groups that prolonged school closures now demand more money and more power, while students pay the price.

Spending more, learning less

The U.S. spent $15,500 per student in 2019 (adjusted to 2021 dollars), 38% more than the OECD average, while delivering worse outcomes. Yet unions still fight to preserve their monopoly and to block competition from private or charter schools.

But school choice is breaking through. As of May 2025, 35 states offer some form of private school choice program, most with more than one. Of those states, 27 voted for Trump in 2024. Among the 15 states without school choice, 11 voted for Harris.

The pattern is clear: The longest lockdowns happened in blue states, where Democratic leaders sided with unions over students.

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ljubaphoto via iStock/Getty Images

Federalism’s hard lesson

Macedo and Lee note that “lengthier school closures had strong political support in Democratic-leaning jurisdictions.” The Sunlight Policy Center of New Jersey measured the impact:

Red states (that voted for Trump in 2020) provided in-person instruction for 74.5% of the 2020-21 school year, while blue states (that voted for Biden) only provided in-person instruction for 37.6% of the time. Put another way, children in red states got 134 days of in-person instruction versus 68 days for blue state children. The bottom line: Red state kids got almost twice the number of in-person days than blue state kids during the school year. That’s an enormous difference in learning.

The bottom line: Red states emphasized learning; blue states kowtowed to union demands.

The takeaway

American seniors may be falling behind in math and reading, but the country has gained a civics lesson: Federalism matters. Where unions dictate policy, students suffer. Where parents have choices, students have opportunities.

The fight for school choice isn’t only about better scores. It’s about protecting families from the kind of educational malpractice that wrecked a generation of learning.

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America doesn’t have a science problem. It has a trust problem.

The collapse of trust didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because the people running our institutions — government agencies, public health bureaucracies, and elite media — chose fear over facts, power over principle, and silence over accountability.

Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.

I’ve spent more than three decades in life sciences, investing in innovation and funding companies that bring real cures to market. Bureaucracy can slow progress. But during COVID-19, the damage went farther. It wasn’t just red tape. It was arrogance, censorship, and the collapse of debate inside institutions once devoted to transparency and truth.

We told Americans to “trust the experts,” then changed the story every few weeks. We locked down playgrounds while allowing political protests. We shut down small businesses while rewarding massive platforms. We punished skepticism, not misinformation. We arrested surfers, fired nurses, and drove policemen and military personnel out of their jobs for refusing a vaccine. Where were the “my body, my choice” voices then?

Now Americans don’t just question mandates — they question everything: the data, the motives, the science itself.

Who can blame them? Childhood vaccination rates are falling because public health failed. An entire generation lost precious developmental time in isolation. Families grieved alone. And the same bureaucrats behind those mandates persuaded us to blame COVID, when in fact it was their decisions that did much of the damage. No one has been questioned. No one has been punished. Not one county health official has been held accountable.

A recent Gallup poll showed trust in institutions like the CDC and FDA has collapsed by more than 30 points in just a few years. That trust won’t be restored by press conferences or new slogans. It will only be restored when real leaders tell the truth about what went wrong and take responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Dr. Scott Atlas put it plainly: The lockdowns weren’t the result of the virus. They were the result of decisions — decisions made by people who ignored known data, silenced dissent, and wielded authority like a weapon. And they got it wrong. Pretending otherwise only guarantees the disaster repeats.

So where do we start if we want to rebuild trust?

End the illusion of absolute authority. The CDC, NIH, and FDA must return to their proper role: advisory. They don’t make laws. They don’t issue mandates. They provide information — period.

Impose term limits on public health leadership. No more 30-year bureaucratic dynasties. Power without turnover hardens into ideology.

Ban conflicts of interest. No royalty payments to government scientists from the very companies they regulate. No revolving door between regulators and pharma.

Demand transparency. Every agency meeting, vote, and decision should be public and immediate. If they work for us, we should know what they’re saying.

These aren’t partisan talking points. They’re common-sense reforms. The stakes are too high to shrug and “move on.” Parents who lost a year of their children’s development, the elderly who died alone, the small business owners who lost everything — they deserve accountability. This isn’t about public policy. It’s about principle.

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Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

And here’s the deeper truth: Fixing this mess isn’t just government’s job. It’s up to us — the entrepreneurs, innovators, parents, doctors, investors, and voters — to become stewards of truth. Not because we crave power, but because we believe in clarity. Because we still believe in the ideals America was built on.

I came to the United States at 15 after fleeing war in Beirut. I’ve seen what happens when fear and control override freedom and reason. I’ve spent my life betting on better — on ideas, on people, and on this country.

Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.

It doesn’t. It only postpones the next disaster.

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New York Times admits the truth about COVID school closures and the long-term harms of fear-based decision-making



The New York Times is admitting to the extensive, long-term damage of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns on schoolchildren and their learning.

Four years after politicians shut down schools, the New York Times published a new analysis on Monday admitting there is "broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts" that school closures significantly harmed children despite not stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Relying on the most recent data about pandemic learning loss, the Times drew several conclusions about why school closures were bad policy.

First, the Times found that students who were kept out of school longer — relegated to remote or hybrid "learning" — fell behind further academically than students who returned to the classroom earlier. Those academic losses have been near-impossible to overcome.

From the Times:

The most recent test scores, from spring 2023, show that students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses, with larger gaps remaining among students that lost the most ground to begin with. Students in districts that were remote or hybrid the longest — at least 90 percent of the 2020-21 school year — still had almost double the ground to make up compared with students in districts that allowed students back for most of the year.

Second, the so-called "newspaper of record" found that students in lower socio-economic situations experienced steeper learning losses than students from more affluent backgrounds.

"That is notable because poor districts were also more likely to stay remote for longer," the Times reported, explaining that the country's largest poor school districts are located in Democrat-controlled cities that used heavy-handed approaches to the pandemic.

Third, the Times found that short-term school closures did not exempt students from learning loss — and other significant problems.

"Many schools are seeing more anxiety and behavioral outbursts among students. And chronic absenteeism from school has surged across demographic groups," the Times reported. "These are signs, experts say, that even short-term closures, and the pandemic more broadly, had lasting effects on the culture of education."

The kicker is that politicians subjected students to these harms despite a clear lack of evidence proving that school closures slowed the spread of COVID-19.

Unfortunately, the Times only danced around the correct retrospective conclusion about school lockdowns.

"Some schools, often in Republican-led states and rural areas, reopened by fall 2020. Others, typically in large cities and states led by Democrats, would not fully reopen for another year," the newspaper stated.

Given the data presented in the article, what that really means is: Republican-controlled states generally handled the pandemic correctly by limiting closures, while Democrat-controlled states — influenced by the "experts," teachers unions, and corporate media — dropped the ball.

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WATCH: Dr. Phil SILENCES Whoopi Goldberg over COVID protocols



Whoopi Goldberg and the other lefties on “The View” are quick to talk over and belittle anyone who disagrees with their shared liberal ideology.

However, when Dr. Phil was invited on the show, he was not about to be silenced. In fact, he was the one who did the silencing.

Rick Burgess and Bill "Bubba" Bussey play a clip of Dr. Phil stating straight facts about how COVID protocols were damaging to schoolchildren.

“The agencies that shut down the schools for two years … [took] away the support system for these children,” he boldly stated, adding that “when they shut it down, they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers.”

Well, Whoopi didn’t like that.

“They were trying to save kids’ lives. Remember we know a lot of folks who died during this,” she fired back.

“Not schoolchildren,” he retorted.

“Maybe we're lucky they didn't because we kept them out of the places that they could be sick.”

“Are you saying no schoolchildren died of COVID?” asked Ana Navarro, who looked deeply offended.

“I’m saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group, and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID, and that's not an opinion. That's a fact,” Dr. Phil concluded, but before Whoopi or Ana could respond, the audience erupted into applause.

“You’ve got to love his bravery,” says Rick, acknowledging that it’s unlikely Dr. Phil will be invited back on “The View” any time soon.

To see the footage of Dr. Phil shutting down “The View’s” panel of lefties, watch the clip below.


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Audience erupts in applause when Dr. Phil schools 'The View' hosts about COVID lockdowns and schoolchildren: 'That's a fact'



Dr. Phil McGraw educated the hosts of "The View" on Monday about the harm COVID lockdowns brought on school children and teenagers.

While discussing his forthcoming book, Dr. Phil connected the advent of the smartphone to high levels of "depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality" among children and teenagers because users "stopped living their lives and starting watching people live their lives."

Those problems were exacerbated by COVID lockdowns, Dr. Phil explained, pointing out that the same government agencies that track these problems among American youth were the "same agencies" that "shut down the schools for two years."

"Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes it away and shuts it down?" he asked. "And by the way, when they shut it down, they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers with no way to watch, and referrals dropped 50 to 60%."

Sunny Hostin was the first co-host to interject and defend the lockdowns. She was quickly followed by Whoopi Goldberg.

"There was also a pandemic going on, and they were trying to save their lives," Hostin told Dr. Phil.

"They were trying to save kids' lives," Goldberg defended.

"Not school children," Dr. Phil shot back.

Ana Navarro then took her chance at Dr. Phil, asking a question that prompted a reality check from Dr. Phil.

"Are you saying no school children died of COVID?" Navarro asked.

"I'm saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group," Dr. Phil responded. "And they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID. And that's not an opinion — that's a fact."

The audience loudly applauded Dr. Phil's answer.

Dr. Phil is right.

Young people, especially teenagers and children, were the least likely to die from COVID-19.

But that didn't stop politicians and bureaucrats from shutting down schools. Now, nearly everyone agrees the lockdown policies are responsible for widespread learning loss, a deficit for which the "experts" have yet to find a solution.

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This Is What Finally Broke Me and Made Me No Longer Trust Authorities | Dr. Drew Pinsky
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