Republicans blame Democrats, union bosses for fastest drop in nine-year-olds’ learning in 50 years

After students were set back decades in reading and math scores, Republicans are blaming Democrats and teachers’ unions for keeping classroom doors shuttered through much of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Math scores among third grade students dropped five points from 2020 to 2022 and reading scores dropped seven.

Reading scores saw their largest drop in three decades and math scores fell for the first time since records began, according to a new report federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

‘President Biden, Randi Weingarten, and their Democrat counterparts across the country deserve equal blame for undercutting the educational pursuits of America’s children,’ Rep. Virginia Foxx, ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, told DailyMail.com in a statement. 

‘After being forced to learn in front of a screen for months on end – and being robbed of in-person instruction alongside their peers – it comes as no surprise that students continue to fall behind in core subject areas. This is a textbook example of government and union-driven rot that’s plaguing our future leaders.’

‘Actual science didn’t support school closures. Democrats were too busy following political science to care. We lost decades of gains in reading and math scores as a result,’ Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., wrote on Twitter of the new sobering statistics. 

‘The historic ‘falloff’ of test scores is a result of forcing children into social isolation and allowing left-leaning teachers’ unions to call the shots instead of parents. We are now facing the repercussions of locking down our schools and society in the name of ‘public health,” added Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C. 

The declines, measured from 2020 to 2022, hit all regions of the country and students from most backgrounds — underscoring how home-learning during the pandemic was no substitute for in-classroom teaching. 

Much standardized testing didn’t happen in the early days of the pandemic, so the findings released Thursday gave a taster of Covid-19 disruptions. A fuller picture of the damage is expected later in the year.

NCES acting associate commissioner Daniel McGrath lamented ‘some of the largest declines we have observed in a single assessment cycle in 50 years’ of the Nation’s Report Card, as it is known informally.

‘Students in 2022 are performing at a level last seen two decades ago.’ 

All groups were affected, but black and Hispanic students saw sharper falls in math scores than their white counterparts.

Asian American and Native American students bucked the trend with no discernible drop in scores. 

Although it marks a sharp drop since 2020, the average reading score was 7 points higher than it was in 1971, and the average math score was 15 points higher than in 1978, the study found. 

‘The unnecessary union school shutdowns have made our kids #GenCovid,’ former Education Sec. Betsy DeVos wrote on Twitter. She cited Columbia University Professor Aaron Pallas who predicted to the Wall Street Journal that nine-year-olds would not catch up by the time they left high school. 

‘Democrats’ collusion with the Union Bosses to keep schools shuttered caused students’ math & reading scores to plummet. Now some Democrats like DC’s mayor want to kick kids out of school for not being vaccinated. We need accountability,’ the Twitter account for Republicans on the select committee investigating coronavirus wrote on Twitter. 

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten had a positive spin on the new figures, emphasizing that shutdowns were necessary due to the pandemic. 

‘Thankfully after two years of disruption from a pandemic that killed more than 1 mil Americans, schools are already working on helping kids recover and thrive. This is a year to accelerate learning by rebuilding relationships, focusing on the basics,’ she wrote on Twitter. 

Meanwhile the number of students held back a grade has surged across the country. 

Twenty-four of the 28 states that provided data for the most recent academic year saw an increase in the number of students who were held back, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Reading scores saw their largest drop in three decades and math scores fell for the first time since records began, according to the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics

Three states — South Carolina, West Virginia and Delaware — saw retention more than double.  

States like Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey and Texas enacted new laws after the pandemic allowing parents, not just schools, to decide whether or not their children were ready to move on to the next grade in school. Many parents are now taking advantage of the do-over opportunity after students struggled to retain information they were taught in front of a computer screen. 

Unvaccinated middle and high school students in Washington, D.C. will be forced to get a jab or drop out this year, as Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a coronavirus vaccine mandate for school attendance. That bars about 40 percent of black students aged 12-17 who have not yet taken both shots from entering the classroom.