This won’t be news to anybody who has paid attention to American education or science since 2021, but the New York Times has published a lengthy piece by Sarah Mervosh, Claire Cain Miller, and Francesca Paris summarizing studies of Covid school closures that show that “the more time students spent in remote instruction, the further they fell behind.” Not only that: “And, experts say, extended closures did little to stop the spread of Covid.” You won’t see an apology here to red-state governors who were relentlessly smeared for battling to keep their schools open, or any consequences visited upon public health “experts,” teachers’ unions, or voices in journalism who did the smearing. But the studies’ verdict is about as close as you’re going to get.
