House members sparred over school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic Wednesday, with Republicans arguing during a heated hearing that the measures lasted too long and caused irreparable harm to a generation of students.
“It’s a steep price to pay, and they’re continuing to pay for these … needless school closures, and I should say prolonged school closures,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla. “The mass shuttering of schools throughout the pandemic is one of our greatest education policy failures in our nation’s history.”
Meanwhile, Democrats defended the closures as necessary precautions against the spread of the virus.
“Yes, my colleagues and I are deeply concerned about missed learning. But I also urge us to keep in mind the lives lost as well as the lives saved by limiting exposure,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore.
A subcommittee from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce heard testimony from witnesses in a hearing on the politically contentious issue.
Here’s what to know about how lawmakers are grappling with the legacy of school closures across the country.
Closures were lifesaving, Democrats and witness say
Mary-Patricia Wray, a public policy consultant and mother of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, testified before the subcommittee that remote learning and similar precautions kept children like her disabled son protected through the pandemic.
“Causing educators … and children like mine to choose between their life or an education is the absolute least American decision that we could make as a generation,” Wray said of calls to reopen schools sooner.
Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn.., a former high school teacher of 15 years, pushed back against Republican criticism and said closing schools was a safety response based on information available at the time.
“We don’t need Brookings (Institute) data to tell us that if kids are not in school, they won’t learn. That’s pretty basic,” Hayes said, referencing the Washington think tank. “But we also know if kids are dead, they don’t learn.”
Students continue to play catch up
Pandemic-era students lost “a generation of progress,” Bean said. Fellow Republicans, including Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., argued that the problem was exacerbated by the length of closures, blaming their colleagues across the aisle.
“The left will concede that the pandemic caused learning loss. However, the evidence suggests that learning loss is far worse than it should’ve been because the Democrat politicians and their teacher union allies kept schools closed far longer than what was necessary,” Miller alleged.
Data from the federal Education Department earlier this year showed that half of students across the country began this school year a grade level behind in at least one subject.
Before the pandemic, about 36% of students started a usual school year at that level.
The pace of learning today is still too slow, Nat Malkus, education policy researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told House members.
“Unless that pace improves dramatically, hope for recovery for this academic generation is lost,” he said.
