The awful effects of distance learning

The political left likes to claim, ad nauseam, that they and they alone are standing up for the interests of our nation’s children — particularly those who are disadvantaged in some way.

Perhaps more than anything, the COVID crisis has exposed that trope for the lie it is.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal this week editorialized on a new study that brings to light yet more evidence that compulsory distance learning, widely enforced by progressives throughout the pandemic, is inflicting serious harm on our children.

The editors write:

In fall 2020, it was becoming obvious that school closures would exacerbate inequalities in the education system. Now, a new study predicts these inequalities will reduce the future earnings of low-income students.

Distance learning turned out to be an oxymoron. There’s abundant evidence that students forced to endure remote learning didn’t learn as much as they would have in the classroom. Grades and test scores from the Clark County School District confirm that as well.

A group of economists, including professors from Yale and Northwestern, recently looked at the implications of this learning loss. The results were discouraging.

Their model predicted that ninth graders in low-income neighborhoods would see a half-a-point decline in their GPA, using a four-point scale. Children in well-off areas, however, “remained unscathed,” thanks to better parental support and peer environments. Poor children are “less likely to benefit from the support of parents who are able to work from home,” the piece, published in VoxEU, finds.

“Four years down the road, the school closure causes an average 25 percent reduction of labor earnings for the poorest children when these enter the labor market,” the economists write. “This implies that the future society will be more unequal and have less social mobility.”

There was an abundance of evidence early on in this crisis that the left’s insistence on school closures was ill-conceived and should have been abandoned. Yet for spurious reasons — many of them political — they persisted. And it’s our kids who will be left to suffer the consequences. Shame.

Morning morsels …

TAXES AND THE CONSTITUTION

Taxation refunds illegal business tax payments (Nevada Appeal): The Nevada Taxation Department has now refunded $64.88 million of the Modified Business Tax illegally overpaid by Nevada businesses. The higher level MBT was slated to sunset last year but Democratic lawmakers attempted to keep that from happening, arguing that eliminating a sunset wasn’t actually a tax increase and, therefore, didn’t require a two-thirds majority. The attempt failed when Carson City District Judge Todd Russell agreed with Republican senators that, since removing the sunset generated about $100 million in General Fund revenue, it had to have a two-thirds vote. Read more >

ELECTION POLICY

Initiatives seek to require voter ID, repeal automatic mail-in voting (Bill Dentzer, Las Vegas Review-Journal): The national partisan dispute over voting security and ballot reform has opened a new front in Nevada with introduction of two new proposed ballot measures that seek to reverse voting changes enacted by legislative Democrats starting with the 2020 pandemic crisis. One measure would ask voters to approve a state constitutional amendment to require photo ID at polling places and voter ID on mail ballots. The other is a referendum on whether to repeal sections of a 2021 law that standardized mail-in voting in the state. Read more >

EDUCATION

Nevada weighs permanent rule allowing emergency substitutes (Nevada Appeal): A state panel will consider allowing public schools in Nevada's two most populous counties to hire emergency substitute teachers who have only a high school diploma. A planned Feb. 24 hearing by the Commission on Professional Standards in Education comes as the pandemic has aggravated school staffing shortages, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Read more >

BLM ‘Week of Action’ Teaching Students Nationwide to Affirm Transgenderism, Disrupt Nuclear Family (Ryan Mills, National Review): Students across the country as young as kindergarten-age are learning that “everybody gets to choose their own gender” and are receiving kid-friendly lessons on disrupting “Western nuclear family dynamics” as part of this week’s national Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. The activist-driven curriculum for the Week of Action, which kicked off Monday, is based off the 13 “Black Lives Matter Guiding Principles.” Read more >

COVID

Sheriff lifts vaccine mandate for new Las Vegas police employees (Glenn Puit & David Wilson, Las Vegas Review-Journal): Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo has rescinded a mandate requiring new Metropolitan Police Department hires to be vaccinated against COVID-19. During a Tuesday interview, Lombardo said he continues to encourage officers and other employees to get the vaccine. But with a recent dip in positive cases at the Police Department, he lifted the vaccine mandate for new hires about a week ago. Read more >

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Recently appointed state Sen. Don Tatro announces surprise bid to keep seat at Legislature (James DeHaven, Reno Gazette Journal): State Sen. Don Tatro has decided to seek a full term at the Nevada Legislature after all. Tatro — a Reno Republican who previously said he would not try to keep the statehouse seat he was appointed to late last year — told the Reno Gazette Journal he changed his mind after receiving encouragement from community leaders and colleagues. ... Assemblywoman Lisa Krasner, a three-term Republican and political science professor, in September announced she would look to take [Ben] Kieckhefer’s seat in state Senate District 16 — all but ensuring a primary election clash with Tatro. Read more >

Candidates congregate in Ely (Kay Lynn Roberts-McMurray, Ely Times): The Lincoln Day Breakfast was a welcomed return last weekend for many after last year’s cancellation of the event due to COVID restrictions. Not even snow and freezing temps stopped several Republican politicians from making the trip to Ely to celebrate the party’s fundraising event. Read more >

THE BORDER

Biden’s Southern Border Crisis Isn’t Going Away (Jason L. Riley, The Wall Street Journal): The Biden administration doesn’t seem much interested in the havoc on our southern border, but the problem isn’t going away. If anything, the situation has been worsening, and Republicans are certain to tee up border security as a midterm campaign theme. Mr. Biden’s overall job-approval rating is in the low 40s. That’s worrying enough for Democrats, but Americans think even less of how the president is handling immigration, with only 36% of respondents voicing satisfaction in a recent CBS News poll. Read more >

NOTABLE QUOTE

“Liberals don’t care what you do so long as it’s compulsory.” ― William F. Buckley, Jr.