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.

RELATED: Stop blaming schools — the crisis starts in America’s homes

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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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The Education Dept. is a failure, and Trump is right to shut it down



For decades, the Department of Education has existed as a bloated, useless agency whose only real function has been to funnel money into the pockets of teachers’ unions, fund radical leftist social experiments at universities, and ensure that American children graduate high school barely able to read or do basic math. Now, President Trump is finally doing what should have been done long ago and shutting it down.

Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to close the department as soon as it's feasible, with the consent of Congress. This step is necessary to address the ongoing collapse of American education and our declining international standing.

Trump’s plan to dismantle the Education Department isn’t just sound policy — it’s essential for saving the next generation of Americans.

Standardized test scores have plummeted not just for years, but for decades. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress results show that U.S. students’ math and reading scores have taken a sharp dive since 2020. In cities like Chicago and Baltimore, nearly 80% of students fail to reach proficiency in core subjects.

Many students leave school unable to read or do basic arithmetic, yet they can recite pronouns and explain why America is supposedly systemically racist. The Department of Education has prioritized ideology over academics for years. Shutting it down is the first step toward real reform.

Teachers’ unions will lose big

The Department of Education controls billions in taxpayer dollars — $80 billion in 2024 alone — but instead of improving literacy or ensuring that schools hire competent teachers, it pours money into DEI programs, bloated bureaucracy, and unnecessary administrative positions.

The people making decisions in this agency are not educators; they are political activists. While rural and inner-city schools struggle with crumbling infrastructure and a lack of basic supplies, the department prioritizes funding for transgender bathroom policies and “anti-racist” curriculum mandates.

The real beneficiaries of this system are the teachers’ unions. These unions collect billions in dues, protect bad teachers from being fired, and fought to keep schools closed during COVID while their leadership vacationed. The Department of Education exists not to serve students, but to shield and enrich these unions.

When Democrats claim abolishing the DOE will “harm students,” they really mean it will harm their campaign donations. The education system functions as a financial pipeline between the government and the unions: The government funds the DOE, the DOE directs money to the unions, and the unions take their cut before funneling it back into Democratic political campaigns.

The numbers are clear — campaign finance reports reveal that politicians like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.), former Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rake in union cash while claiming to champion the middle class. In reality, they are enabling the destruction of America’s education system.

Leftists are panicking over Trump’s move because they prioritize control over education, not the well-being of students. If they cared about children, they wouldn’t have allowed generations to graduate functionally illiterate. They wouldn’t fight to keep students trapped in failing schools while blocking every attempt at school choice. Their goal is to maintain control, keep taxpayer dollars flowing, and produce generations just smart enough to pass standardized tests — but not smart enough to question the system.

Generations of failure

Standardized testing is another disaster created by the Department of Education. American schools no longer focus on actual education; they train students to regurgitate test answers. Federal mandates force teachers to “teach to the test” instead of instructing students in critical thinking, history, or real-life skills. Schools don’t care if students understand the material. They only care if they pass the test because that determines their federal funding.

The result? Generations of students graduate without the ability to write a coherent paragraph or balance a checkbook, but they know how to fill in the right bubble on a multiple-choice exam. America’s declining educational rankings reflect this failure. While other nations teach coding and computer skills, our schools focus on test performance and gender identity lessons.

Trump’s plan to dismantle the DOE isn’t just sound policy — it’s essential for saving the next generation of Americans. The federal government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to improve public schools. For more than 40 years, it has failed to produce better outcomes. The only solution is to return control of education to states and local communities, where parents have a voice and schools are accountable to the people, not to Washington bureaucrats.

Democrats will claim this move spells the “end of public schools,” presumably to “pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” Nonsense. States are fully capable of running their own school systems, as they already provide the majority of education funding. The DOE doesn’t teach children, manage classrooms, or ensure school performance. Instead, it enforces ideological conformity, enriches teachers’ unions, and punishes states that refuse to comply with its mandates. It’s a bloated bureaucracy with no real benefit to students. It’s well past time to cut it loose.

The path to success

America’s children deserve a school system that puts education over ideology. They need teachers hired for their competence, not their union connections. Parents should have more influence over their children’s education than distant bureaucrats or union bosses. Schools should equip students for success, not leave them unprepared, dependent, and burdened with student debt for degrees that offer no real career prospects.

The Department of Education has had decades to prove its value — and it has succeeded only in squandering billions of dollars. Shutting it down is the right move. Any politicians defending this bloated bureaucracy aren't protecting children’s futures; they’re protecting their own financial interests.

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