On Wednesday, House members spoke about school closures from the COVID-19 pandemic, with Republicans arguing at a heated hearing that the measures lasted too long and caused irreparable harm to a generation of students.
“It’s worth paying the most, and they continue to pay for those Arrays. . . unnecessary school closures, and I say prolonged school closures,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla. “The mass closure of schools due to the pandemic is one of the biggest disruptions to our school policy in our country’s history. “
Meanwhile, Democrats have defended the lockdowns as precautions against the spread of the virus.
“Yes, my colleagues and I are deeply involved in lost learning. But I also urge us to keep lives lost and lives stored in the brain by restricting exposure,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore.
A subcommittee of the House Education and Manpower Committee heard testimony from witnesses at a hearing on the politically contentious issue.
Here’s what you want to know about how lawmakers are dealing with the legacy of school closures across the country.
Mary-Patricia Wray, a public policy representative and mother of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, testified before the subcommittee that remote learning and similar precautions protect children like her disabled son from the pandemic.
“Bringing Array educators . . . and kids like mine who choose between their lives or an education is the least American resolution we can make as a generation,” Wray said of calls to reopen schools sooner.
Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn. , a former high school teacher for 15 years, dismissed the Republican complaint, saying the school’s closure was a protective reaction based on data available at the time.
“We don’t want the knowledge of the Brookings (Institute) to tell us that if young children are in school, they may not learn. It’s pretty basic,” Hayes said, referring to the Washington think tank. “But we also know that if young people are dead, they don’t learn. “
Students in the pandemic era have missed “a generation of progress,” Bean said. Republican colleagues, and added Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill. , argued that the challenge was exacerbated for the duration of the shutdowns, and blamed their colleagues across the aisle.
“The left will admit that the pandemic has caused a loss of learning. However, the evidence suggests that learning loss is far worse than it has been because Democratic politicians and their allies in teacher unions have kept schools closed much longer than necessary,” Miller said. saying.
Data from the federal Ministry of Education earlier this year showed that part of academics across the country this school year were behind in at least one subject.
Before the pandemic, about 36% of students had a normal school year at this level.
The speed of learning is still too slow, Nat Malkus, an education policy researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told House members.
“Unless that speed improves dramatically, hope for a recovery for this educational generation is lost,” he said.