Beth Ann Rosica: Lockdowns didn’t just flatten the curve. They crushed a generation.
Today marks the sixth anniversary of what I could argue was the worst decision in our state’s history — the lockdown and closure of schools.
Six years ago today on another Friday the 13th, Governor Tom Wolf ordered schools to close for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” Two weeks turned into more than a year for many jurisdictions with Philadelphia schools shuttered for eighteen months.
I was suspicious of the lockdowns early on. None of it made sense to me and by early April 2020, I began advocating to reopen schools and businesses. Of course, it accomplished very little locally, living in deep blue West Chester.
My advocacy began in earnest when I wrote to Governor Wolf on April 11, 2020, imploring him to reconsider his decisions. The letter was prompted by his announcement to close schools for the remainder of the school year.
Each year on March 13, I reread that letter to remind myself of the damage wrought by such myopic, egotistical, and politically motivated decisions. Let us not forget the nonsensical social distancing rules, masking while walking to a restaurant table but taking it off once seated at the “magical, safe zone” of a table. How about deciding which businesses could open and those forced to remain closed?
Meanwhile, schools remained closed the longest. Those with the least risk — children and younger healthy people — suffered the greatest consequences. There was no rhyme nor reason, and certainly no “science” behind these ludicrous decisions.
Looking back, I realize the letter is naive, but in 2020 I still had faith in my Democratic elected officials. By that summer, my naivety was gone, replaced with a deep cynicism of our local and state government.
When I wrote the letter, I foolishly believed Democrats cared about minorities and low-income communities. However, those elected officials — all of whom I voted for — turned their backs on those who needed them the most and subsequently called me a racist for wanting to help them.
In that moment, I knew I would never view politics through the same lens again. And true to my word in that first letter, I have not voted for a single Democrat since 2019 and will not likely do so ever again.
Six years later, every prediction I made in that letter has come true, and in most instances the consequences are much direr. Our children, particularly our most vulnerable, have experienced academic decline, increased child abuse and domestic violence, chronic school absenteeism, and a mental health crisis the likes of which we have never seen before.
This is why it is imperative to remind ourselves of the harm done to our children and communities based on the direction of the Democratic party and its proxies, groups like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and local school superintendents and board directors who were not honest or transparent with their constituents.
While AFT, the country’s largest teachers’ union, and other groups now deny that they worked diligently to keep schools closed, the record shows otherwise. Despite their attempts to rewrite history, the majority of Democrats were in lockstep with the unions and either actively supported the extended school closures or remained silent while children fell further behind and suffered the gravest consequences.
In Pennsylvania, here is what we have to show for the “two weeks to flatten the curve” mantra.
- The majority of students are not proficient in reading, writing, or math
- Chronic absenteeism is significantly higher
- Our adolescents are in the midst of a mental health crisis
Based on last year’s Pennsylvania state testing results, only 41.7 percent of students are proficient in math, and only 48.5 percent are proficient in English Language Arts. The chart below shows small gains between 2015 and 2019 in English Language Arts; yet following the shutdown of schools, the scores demonstrate a significant decline. Current proficiency levels and nowhere near the results pre-lockdowns.
Math scores, while not quite as dramatic as reading and writing, show a similar trend with current levels still below pre-shutdown results. Additionally, the math proficiency rates were already incredibly low prior to the shutdowns.
Even more striking is the impact on low income and some minority students. Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students’ scores are consequential — all are significantly below the statewide average, which it and of itself, is already quite low. Our most vulnerable children suffered the most as a result of the school closures, and it almost seems insurmountable to get them caught up.
Not quite sixteen percent of black students are proficient in math and just over 24 percent are proficient in reading and writing. These numbers are staggering, and while the lockdowns are not fully to blame, there is a strong connection.
In addition to decreased proficiency, more students are now chronically absent than prior to the extended school closures. The state defines chronically absent as students who miss more than ten percent of enrolled school days across the academic year, totaling eighteen days or more in a 180-day school year. Before the governor shuttered schools, only fifteen percent of students statewide were considered chronically absent, and now that number is 21 percent, despite a minimal increase from the 2021-2022 school year.
In addition to the declining proficiency and increased absenteeism, students are struggling with complex mental health issues. The most recent Pennsylvania Youth Survey from 2023 indicates that 37.3 percent of sixth to twelfth graders felt sad or depressed most days in the past twelve months, and 16.1 percent seriously considered suicide.
Our children spend hours “doom scrolling” on their phones, less time interacting in-person with their friends, and minimal time playing outside. Much of this behavior is related to the extended school closures when children and adolescents were locked away alone in their rooms to navigate the most disruptive, frightening experience of their short lives.
Then we forced them to wear masks to school where they could not see their friends’ or teachers’ faces, further stunting their social and cognitive development. We shamed them into wearing those non-scientific muzzles, telling them they might kill their grandma if they didn’t.
This is why I read my letter to Governor Wolf every year on the anniversary of the worst decision in Commonwealth history. We must never forget the impact of that decision and those elected and non-elected officials who supported it. We owe it to our children.
Beth Ann Rosica resides in West Chester, has a Ph.D. in Education, and has dedicated her career to advocating on behalf of at-risk children and families. She covers education issues for Broad + Liberty. Contact her at barosica@broadandliberty.com.
Never forget. Never. The most charitable thing one could possibly say about PA’s approach was “they” meant well, but it took them too long to admit their mistakes and acknowledge the corresponding inadvertent, terrible, consequences. However, if one reads RFK, Jr’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health” published in 2021 (for which RFK was never sued because of discovery) one will understand “they” (Fauci, Levine, etc.) are part of the elite class and they’re actually deranged humans. Some of them are even confused about their very own genders which twenty years ago would be a preposterous idea in and of itself. Their policies were very deliberate and intentional and accomplished certain goals, mainly: helped transfer trillions upward to big companies and the rich. They intentionally and irrationally wrecked small businesses, and their duplicitous so-called “two weeks” plan failed to beat the virus better than places that stayed more open. Their Covid response is yet another example that shows how rules usually favor the powerful while hurting regular people.
Sweden never did strict lockdowns, they had no school closures for kids, no forced business shutdowns, but simply advice to be careful. Yes, Sweden had more COVID deaths early on but over the full pandemic (2020-2022), its total extra deaths (from all causes) were among the lowest in Europe and were lower than the U.S. and most locked-down countries. Sweden’s economy also bounced back faster with less damage, and kids didn’t lose learning time. Heavily populated areas like NYC needed to INITIALLY respond differently than Sweden, but they stayed closed for too long. And they did that on purpose, while enriching themselves at the poor’s expense. It was evil behavior. It is literally even discussed within the Epstein files that were released recently. And most US taxpayers learned nothing from it all.
The rot went beyond lockdowns and social distancing. It encompasses the alienation, loneliness and lack of reasoning skills created by too much screen time on social media, forced by at home lockdowns, and lack of direct social. intercourse. Tom Wolf, a man of shallow intellect and a very large disdain for the masses, had no problem adopting policies that would keep them in their place. The lack of caring if people lost their livelihood is an expression of the values attendant to a privileged child of wealthy elites. Now that the consequences of what happened is becoming apparent, the excuses are starting to fly along with the insincere mea culpas.
Is it possible to learn from our mistakes? the intial, over=abundance of caution was cerainly, not the problem. It was the fear of being accused of making a mistake when the data indicated that the really vulnerable, oldfolks and pre=existing conditions group needed to be addressed, with the balance of the people who would find themselves ;naturally Imuned” the old fashion way of having gotten the bug and then recovered.
Trust in Our System and Our “Leaders” certainly erroded because of this mismanagement