Maybe Next Time There is a Pandemic, We Will Do a Cost-Benefit Analysis Before Shutting Down Schools

Excerpt from a new article at Reason: New Data Show COVID School Closures Contributed to Largest Learning Loss in Decades: Teachers unions and progressive politicians pushed for school closures during the pandemic.

Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released new data showing a dramatic decline in test scores among American 9-year-olds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data indicate a devastating learning loss among American schoolchildren, marking the largest decline in reading scores since 1990, and the first ever recorded drop in mathematics scores.

These results come from a special administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress long-term trend (LTT) assessments, which measured reading and mathematics outcomes among 9-year-olds. Since its inception, the LTT has tracked a steady rise in educational performance among 9-year-olds. However, from 2020 to 2022, the LTT revealed a steep drop in 9-year-old students' performance. Reading scores dropped by five points over the two-year period, while mathematics scores dropped by seven points. In all, the decline in test scores represents the reversal of around two decades of improvement in math and reading scores.

"These results are sobering," Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told The Washington Post. "It's clear that covid-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group."

Glenn Greenwald was excoriated by many people when he suggested (in August 2021) that we do a cost-benefit analysis before shutting down schools. We do such a cost-benefit analysis in most other walks of life, such as automobile safety. We failed to think rationally with regard to our schools and now we've hurt millions of children. Too many of us became obsessed with achieving something that clearly impossible: Zero Covid." Too many of us were not interested in looking at statistics showing that Covid presented only a tiny risk to most school children. We did not follow the science.  Why are so many people still not willing to admit that Ron DeSantis made the right call about keeping the schools open in Florida? Why am I not confident that we've learned a damned thing from this tragedy?

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Gender Ideology: Colin Wright Offers a Case Study

How does one explain "the sudden and dramatic rise in the number of children being referred to gender clinics for gender dysphoria—the experience of distress caused by a perceived mismatch between one’s biological sex and “gender identity.”

Biologist Colin Wright followed one recent case on the Facebook Group, “Trans People and the Allies Who Support Them” Facebook Group.? Here's a great recipe if you would like to confuse and abuse a young child.

[This sudden and dramatic rise of such cases] is likely due to the equally sudden rise of a radical new ideology—gender ideology—which is a set of beliefs asserting that whether someone is a man/boy or woman/girl is entirely rooted in one’s subjective “gender identity” as opposed to one’s objective biological sex. In practice, “gender identity” reflects an individual’s affinity to, or rejection of, masculine and/or feminine stereotypes.

This truly radical reconceptualization of what it means to be a man, woman, boy, or girl, does not come without equally radical and harmful consequences. The harm results from the fact that the completely natural and common tendency of some individuals of each sex to exhibit gender nonconforming personalities and behavior is now being incorrectly interpreted as being transgender—a psychological condition that requires treatment.

The current standard of care is called “gender-affirming therapy,” which is the practice of immediately accepting and accommodating a child’s new identity without question or exploration of causal factors. Initially this often means participating in the child’s social transition, which can involve calling the child by a new name, using new pronouns, and allowing them access to spaces (e.g. bathrooms) that “match” their claimed identity. Following social transition, the next step often involves taking puberty blockers to halt further body development, and then cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions such as double mastectomies (removal of breasts) in girls, or orchiectomies (removal of testicles) in boys.

[More . . . .]

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