We said from the beginning of Covid that school lockdowns were an outrageous case of national child abuse.

Now we have the strongest evidence yet. NAEP math and reading test scores for nine-year-old 4th graders fell for the first time in 50 years from 2020 to 2022.

“These results are sobering,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the tests. “It’s clear that COVID-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group.”

But it wasn’t COVID-19 itself that did it.

Let’s be clear about who the villains are here.

July 7, 2020, was Trump’s White House schools forum. The American Academy of Pediatrics was there calling for all schools to open full-time.

Three days later they reversed in a literal joint statement with the teacher’s unions:

The alternative was simple: keeping the schools open. That’s what Sweden did with no evidence that it contributed to worse COVID outcomes and zero learning loss.

Was there ever a stronger case for school choice than this absolute and unforgivable education debacle of the past two years?