During the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats developed a flippant disregard for the value of schooling for children. That disrespect is going to continue to control how Democrats govern for years to come.
That has been made evident in New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams kicked students out of James Madison High School and forced them into virtual learning so he could use the school as a shelter for illegal immigrants. We already know that virtual “learning” is detrimental to children, and yet Adams has resigned students to it to make room for the illegal immigrants he is encouraging to cross the border by boasting about being a sanctuary city.
As was true during the pandemic, those students are the last priority for Adams and the Democrats in his city, ranking even below people who crossed the border illegally. This is not the first time Adams and New York City Democrats have done this, either. They also moved illegal immigrants into multiple school gyms, shutting down or restricting school programs and recess in the process.
Democrats have a taste for school closures and restrictions now after embracing them, in defiance of basic science and the interests of children, during the pandemic. New York City is the most prominent example, but you can see others in schools that stretched their COVID-19 policies into the fall 2023 semester, canceling classes and imposing quarantines over illnesses as if it was 2020 all over again.
Many go as far as to deny the reality of the effects of school closures on children, following the lead of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who denied that school closures had negative effects on children as recently as Tuesday to GOP lawmakers in a closed-door hearing. In their view, schools could be closed indefinitely and it would have no meaningful impact on children because they do not think children learning in school is important in any way.
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You can see this in a different context with the push to turn schools into propaganda factories focused on “fake news” and identitarian politics over, you know, math. In California, math is now about “meaning-making” and “equity,” not numbers and problem-solving. Schools are now playgrounds for Democratic ideologues, while school playgrounds are now homeless shelters for illegal immigrants.
This is all a byproduct of the pandemic, where Democrats decided children didn’t matter and that school was not important for them. That attitude has cemented itself as part of the Democratic Party’s view of governance, which is why Adams thinks he should be able to force children out of school to address an illegal immigration problem that he created. This attitude didn’t end with COVID-19, nor will the fight to prioritize schools and children’s learning.