VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It’s been a busy summer for Deborah DeJesus.
The owner of two tutoring centers said there’s been an uptick in clients because many parents worry their children are still struggling to catch up scholastically due to pandemic-related setbacks.
“A lot of children have fallen behind for sure,” said DeJesus, who owns Sylvan Learning in Williamsburg and Newport News. “Especially with younger children who are learning to read, learning virtually was just harder for them.”
Few would dispute distance learning hurts student performance. Yet many schools nationwide opted for online classes during the height of the pandemic out of safety concerns for students and teachers.
Virginia Republicans who spoke out against school closures appear to be taking a victory lap amid Thursday’s release of below-average standardized test scores in Virginia, but critics say they are missing the point.
“None of us thought restricting in-person instruction during the pandemic would be beneficial to student outcomes,” James J. Fedderman, president of the Virginia Education Association, said in a Friday statement. “This was not and is not a political issue. It’s always been about saving lives.”
Virginia’s public schools shuttered in March 2020 amid fears about the virus and its rapid spread.
Those fears weren’t unfounded: More than 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19. Many others struggle with long-term impacts from the disease. Children, for example, are up to 2 1/2 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes after a coronavirus infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Any discussion of test scores or other student outcomes should be tempered with the somber reality of our need for safety during a global pandemic and the trade-off for human life,” Fedderman said.
But Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his appointees didn't mention the reason behind school closures during last week’s discussion over the Standards of Learning scores, which were released Thursday. Students continue to score lower on the SOL tests than in the years before the pandemic.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, recently appointed by Youngkin, said during a conference call that the results showed the importance of in-person learning, a point with which no one disagrees.
“Students whose schools were closed for in-person instruction suffered the most,” she said. “Being in person for school matters.”
In a Thursday statement, Youngkin took aim at the school closures and said he was elected to restore “high expectations and excellence” in education. The governor has been an outspoken critic of school shutdowns and other pandemic precautions, such as masking requirements for students.
“The SOL results released today demonstrate that prolonged school shutdowns undeniably exacerbated the learning loss experienced by Virginia’s students,” Youngkin said.
Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican who represents the 15th District, also weighed in.
“The closure of our schools and subsequent remote learning will be remembered as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the Commonwealth’s educational system,” he said in a Thursday statement. “Republicans are committed to fixing this unacceptable situation by ensuring our schools have the highest standards.”
Fedderman said it was disappointing that the challenges schools faced during the pandemic were being politicized, but that that has been a pattern for Youngkin.
“Since this governor has been in office he has done nothing but pit parents against educators,” he said.
Youngkin has frequently zeroed in on issues around education. During his first day in office, he signed an executive order aiming to ban mask mandates in schools. He also garnered national attention earlier this year when he launched an email tip line for parents or others to report educators for teaching so-called “divisive concepts,” such as critical race theory.
More recently, Youngkin made an appearance at the Virginia Board of Education’s meeting — an unusual move for a governor — as it prepared to weigh delaying the review process for new history standards.
Jatia Wrighten, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said it’s clear the governor uses education issues to rally his base.
“I don’t think that’s common for any state governor to have this large emphasis on education — not in the ways in which he has spoken about education,” she said.
Wrighten, a former K-12 teacher, said she found it especially surprising because Youngkin has no experience in education.
The professor said politicians might want to think twice before politicizing issues around students and schools. Teaching already is a challenging profession, and putting political pressure on schools isn’t helping.
“Why do we have a teacher shortage in Virginia? I don’t know — maybe because we have a tip line for reporting teachers,” Wrighten said.
“Politicizing education has made it very difficult to attract good teachers and to keep the effective teachers that are currently there.”
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