LOCKDOWN FALLOUT: ‘Shades of badness’ in math, reading scores. “The longer urban schools stayed closed the worse their fourth-graders are doing in math, concludes an analysis of National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP) data.

There’s little evidence that keeping schools closed saved lives, writes Thompson. “Schools remained open in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy in late 2020 and early 2021,” because policy makers relied on “reports that schoolchildren did not play a major role in community transmission.” In addition, “evidence from Ireland, Singapore, Norway, Israel, South Korea, and North Carolina” showed that “young children were less likely than adults to get severely sick from COVID.”

There’s a media push to minimize the NAEP results. After all, writes David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times, what’s a few points after a worldwide pandemic? He worries Democratic politicians will be blamed for extending school closures.

Jay Caspian Kang, writing in The New Yorker, also wants parents to calm down and lower their expectations. Parents’ anxiety has been stoked by “the constant stream of stories about falling ACT and SAT scores, learning loss, and a generation of children who, absent some large-scale intervention, may fall well short of expectations.” But, don’t worry, because affluent, white students also did worse. And you wouldn’t want Democrats might get the blame, would you?

Related: Are You Ready to Forgive and Forget for the Damage Done by COVID Lockdowns?