Monday, April 14, 2025

Part I

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You Can’t Just Blame the Pandemic: America’s School Crisis Started Long Ago, and It’s Predictably Getting Worse

Well, it’s Monday. So for millions, that means back to work and back to school. And it’s school, I want us to think about on this Monday. That is because as information continues to come in post-COVID, what we’re looking at is a further collapse in the achievement scores and test scores of America’s elementary and particularly middle school and high school students. The information is just not good. That’s an understatement if anything. Remember the fact that we already had schools in trouble long before COVID. Then along came COVID. So there was about a two-year interregnum, no doubt about that. But on the other side of COVID, in some cases, the numbers just aren’t getting better and in other cases are getting worse.

Now there is a pattern that persists through all of this. That is that high achieving students continue to be high achievers. It is also true that when you look at the other end of the spectrum in terms of those who are showing low achievement, it is also a rather constant presence. But what’s different is the fact that over time, the two numbers are diverging even further. We’re also looking at the fact that there are a lot of people, a lot of children, a lot of students in the middle who are also demonstrating that the setback from COVID, it’s not a sufficient explanation for the lack of performance in terms of standardized testing.

For example, The New York Times recently ran a headline, “The Pandemic is Not the Only Reason US Students Are Losing Ground.” Listen to this. “There once was a time when America’s lowest-performing students were improving just as much as the country’s top students. Despite their low scores, these students at the bottom made slow but steady gains on national tests for much of the 2000s. It was one sign that the US education system was working, perhaps not spectacularly, but at least enough to help struggling students keep pace with the gains of the most privileged and successful.” But now we are told, and this sentence is really telling. “Today, the country’s lowest-scoring students are in a free fall.”

Now here’s where a lot of people just said, “Well, it’s COVID.” COVID became the explanation for just about everything and whether in business or in finance, in government or in education, you could point to COVID and say there was a tremendous undeniable disruption. But the problem with that as an explanation for the current educational crisis, it’s not sufficient because the crisis preceded COVID. It was there long before COVID. It was showing up in scores, years before COVID.

On the other side of COVID, not only is it not better, it is demonstrably worse. Now the headline and The New York Times said, “The pandemic is not the only reason US students are losing ground.” That means there is the acknowledgment there are other reasons. I’ll tell you what the big reason is just as a change from before the pandemic to after. It’s school attendance. Lowest-performing students increasingly just don’t go to school. You have a phenomenon of students not in the school in the first place.

Of course, they’re not learning if they’re not there when the school is about the only context in which they are likely to learn. As the Times report says, “The reason is not just the pandemic. For at least a decade, starting around 2013, students in the bottom quartile have been losing ground on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a key exam that tests a national sample of fourth and eighth grade students in math and reading.”

Now it is interesting to look at this report in The New York Times and to listen to folks in the educational establishment say the pandemic made a big impact and I don’t think any of us doubt that. But the whole point in this is that the pattern started before the pandemic and the recovery after the pandemic really isn’t showing up. As a matter of fact, something happened at least in part during the pandemic that was bigger than the pandemic. I think that is the breakage in our social fabric in which you had students who discovered not only that they couldn’t go to school during the shutdown of the pandemic, but they didn’t intend to go back to school after the pandemic.

Now let me just say the obvious here. If at any of these ages, I had just decided not to go to school, that would’ve been a meaningless decision. It wasn’t my decision to make. That is because I had two Christian parents, a mom and a dad deeply involved in my life. I also, by the way, liked school. I’m just using myself as an example to say the issue was I had two parents. I had a mom and a dad who knew where I was at all times and I sure better be in school when I was supposed to be in school.

The thought of not attending school was inconceivable. But that points to something and that is that what the educational establishment really can’t acknowledge is that the biggest thing going on here is family disruption. The biggest thing going on here, I’m not ignoring that there are other factors, socioeconomic, sociological, political, cultural, all the rest. But it is simply undeniable that when you look at a child with two parents in the home, a mom and a dad, the likelihood of that student falling behind is remarkably lower than the general population.

But to put it another way, the fact that child in that home would be in the bottom quartile, again, it’s unlikely to happen. Now immediately when you talk about anything like this, you get a kickback. It’s not fair to speak this way of children who have no responsibility for their family context. That’s the recipe for social disaster. That’s social insanity. That’s moral insanity. If you can’t point to a problem and say it’s a problem, then we’re living in an absolute culture of unreality, which frankly, by the way, I think a lot of people would prefer to reality. But you are not blaming children when you point out that children without two parents in the home are at a disadvantage to children that have two parents in the home.

But immediately, you get pushback when people say that, when you talk that way, when you talk about this truth, it makes people feel awkward. Those who may have been in a situation without two parents or those who might right now be in a situation without two parents, or you might have a situation right now where one parent is heroically trying his or her very best to take care of everything, but you can’t replace two with one.

Now the bigger problem for our society, and it’s also a problem in the church, is that when people won’t talk honestly about the most basic issue. Remember for Christians, when you talk about marriage and family and children, you’re talking about creation order problems. When you can’t talk about this, out of some notion of misperceived sensitivity, you’re really dooming more and more children to be in this situation and you’re failing to confront with truth one of the pathologies of the age, which is biblically defined. This is not a sociological description at this point. This is a biblical definition.

But as we know, there are sociological, educational, and cultural outcomes. That’s to be sure. I want to be the first to acknowledge there are other things going on here. For one thing, you have language complexity that was not the case in American public schools a matter of just a few decades ago. You have waves of immigration, you have complex population patterns. In many metropolitan school districts, you have cumulatively millions of students K-12 who speak a primary language other than English, and that represents a huge, huge challenge. No one can deny that that’s biblical in proportions.

There is also the reality that when you’re looking at many of these situations, there are learning disabilities and patterns. I think everyone knows there is a diagnosis problem when it comes to those realities. I think also honesty compels us to say there is something real there when it comes to many children and their challenges. Somewhere between something real and something that has been now politicized and turned into an entire industry. Somewhere between there, there is a real challenge.

Poverty is an issue. No sane person is going to argue that poverty doesn’t have something to do with this, particularly when you have say a single-parent home where the parent has to be outside the home working. That is, by the way, one of the things acknowledged in these reports. That is one of the reasons why many children can now get away with truancy–not going to school. is because there isn’t a parent to know that is taking place. Honesty just compels us to say, we’re looking at a huge problem here, it is in this case, all the way back to a creation order problem.

A society that does not produce in the main stable, workable family units based upon marriage is the union of a man and a woman responsibility for the children that are given to them in that marriage. In the main, if society does not do that, the society eventually is not going to work. But that’s another issue that Christians need to consider. We are very concerned, we must be very concerned about these numbers, the assessment numbers coming in for students K-12, that’s a massive, massive issue.

But remember, they don’t stay children ages say 5 to 17 or 18. They grow up and they go out into the society and they’re going to be in this society very disadvantaged. No one should doubt that. Very disadvantaged. In this sector right now, the sector of jobs available to persons who do not have even just say a baseline educational level, that’s an ever-growing problem, those jobs increasingly do not exist. Furthermore, they are probably ever more endangered as you look forward when you consider automation, AI, other advances in the society, or in this case, I use the word advances, to say things that are going to happen whether they turn out to be in moral terms, advances or not.

Many on the ideological Left actually just explained this in terms of the category privilege, which means that the exception is the child that has two parents in the home, and that constitutes a privilege that needs to be factored into the assessment here. I’ll just point out that to employers and others of that privilege translates into usability and utility, usefulness in terms of career and employment. Morally, Christians have to look at that and just press back and say if creation order is defined as privilege, the point we need to make is that defying creation order leads to, let’s just say, an unprivileged, underprivileged situation. Every child deserves in this sense that privilege. That’s not privilege. That should be the default. 

There’s another issue here, and this one might or might not surprise you. I don’t know. I think the number surprised me. “Today, 90% of US adults and a similar share of teenagers own a smartphone.” All right. That’s 90%, 9 out of 10, 9 out of 10 have and are carrying a smartphone that is going to make a big difference. We know the numbers in terms of time usage and the loss of concentration. The number of college graduates and college students in elite institutions that aren’t reading books, that’s shocking in itself. You can’t read a book and a smartphone at the same time. The smartphone versus the book increasingly means the smartphone wins. That’s a disaster. I think Christians understand that. Christian parents, you better understand that. In the battle for your child’s mind, if the phone wins, we all lose. But the most shocking thing, and this is not that statistic, it’s the following one, and that is that one in three nine-year-olds have a smartphone, one in three nine-year-olds. Seriously? That’s the society we are becoming.

You can just anticipate in this. The distribution of the educational assessment is just going to grow wider and wider and wider. At some point, the kids coming from, say what, the Left would call privilege are going to be de-privileged when they find out that they’re adept with a smartphone and don’t know anything else. But nine-year-olds, seriously?, one out of three having a smartphone? That’s the people we are becoming. Evidently, no wonder, we have these pathologies.

Part II

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Failing Schools: New Study Shows the Pandemic Rocked States Under Democrat Influence Harder Than Republican States

But all right, there’s something else. In this case, it’s interesting that the report comes from The Economist in London. It’s not coming from an American source, it’s not coming from the context of American politics, but it definitely will have relevance to American politics. The Economist reports that learning loss, according to the same studies we’re looking at, the same tests and reports, learning loss has been worse, “In places run by Democrats.”

Now it’s interesting that they see the pattern and that they run the story. The explanation they give, it’s pretty compelling. That is, that labor unions in these areas, teachers unions in these areas, and liberal politicians, democratic politicians in these states and localities, they were quick to shut down the schools and very slow to open them back up. Why? The Economist of London points to what we know to be true. That was largely because of the power of teacher unions.

The teacher unions, I’ll just tell you this, when you look at what they do and what they demonstrate their activism about, it’s really not about teaching. As a matter of fact, this is just further evidence that the teacher’s unions are, in so many ways, the enemies of teaching. You see the result here in this report. The Economist states, “New research offers a culture wars twist on this deficit learning loss during the pandemic was measurably worse in America’s Democrat-leaning states rather than Republican ones.”

A recent analysis, and this is coming from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, “Suggests that prolonged school closures during the pandemic bear much of the blame.” I’ll continue here. They found that while NAEP scores, “Declined considerably in every state between 2019 and 2024, pupils in Democratic or evenly divided states, where school closures lasted for longer, suffered greater declines than those in Republican states.”

Another moral category that’s interesting to us here is that Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University says that the problem of rising absenteeism is due to what he calls “norm erosion.” Now, Christians, our ears should pick up on a term like that norm. That means moral norm erosion or moral principle erosion. “Many students and parents simply began seeing less value in regular school attendance.” This tells us that the norm in one sense, the norm that has now suffered erosion is the norm that children should be in schools and parents should hold children accountable to be in school.

The fact that fewer parents are doing so and more children are not regularly in school, that’s defined here as an evidence of norm erosion. Another way to put that would a breakdown or a tear in the moral fabric. It’s an erosion in norms. In so many cases, norms mean, for instance, a shorthand for morals or a shorthand for the principles by which a society is organized. A society like ours is organized at least on the principle that parents ought to have their children in schools and see to it and children and teenagers ought to be in school.

The failure to do that, of course, I’m not talking here about parents who’ve made alternative arrangements for the education of their children. We’re talking about children who are not in any other educational context and are not in school. All right. Well, we think about the way of the world and how government works. There’s another little say bomblet in this. “Chronic absenteeism is now easing somewhat, but for most pupils who have spent prolonged periods away from the classroom, simply turning up again will not be enough.” Listen to this. “In the wake of the pandemic, the federal government doled out some $190 billion, that’s the last administration, $190 billion, “to help pupils recover, giving school districts broad discretion over how to spend the funds.” $190 billion.

It turns out that a lot of those states built buildings or spent the money on capital improvements rather than what turned out to work, which was an investment in “Academic catch up such as intensive tutoring in small groups.” That’s also the way in the world. The government hands out $190 billion to help students catch up and a lot of that money isn’t spent on anything that really helps students catch up.

Part III

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To Help Students or Please Teachers Unions? Politicians Often Appear to Cater to Teaching Establishment Rather Than Good of Students

All right. Well, we’re talking about the morality of education and the interface between politics, culture, even the two political parties, Josh Shapiro, the very popular Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, who is clearly eyeing a 2028 run for the presidency. That’s not just conjecture. He is clearly setting the stage for a presidential run or at least the opportunity to make a presidential run. Coming from a swing state like Pennsylvania, he could come with an awful lot of energy.

If a Democratic nominee for president has the state of Pennsylvania in his pocket before the campaigning begins, that’s a huge advantage and the Democratic party knows it. Josh Shapiro is a very winsome person. He’s a telegenic, but he’s also double crossed the voters there in Pennsylvania because he ran promising that he was an advocate for school choice, he ran on a very clear claim that if you elect Josh Shapiro governor, he is going to bring about a school choice system there in Pennsylvania.

Now the fact is that Josh Shapiro is, well, he’s really quiet about that issue since going into office, and at least some such as Rachel Langan of the Wall Street Journal point to the fact that it seems to be somewhat tied to the fact that he knows that no one on the wrong side of the teacher’s unions has any chance of gaining the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s just not a possibility.

At some Democratic national conventions, one-third of those present have been either members of the teacher’s unions or married to a member of the teacher’s unions. The power of the teacher unions and the Democratic Party is virtually absolute. That’s one of the reasons why The Economist in the article, we just looked at, points to the fact there is a partisan division in the outcomes as well. As Rachel Langan says in the Wall Street Journal, “The governor hasn’t lifted a finger to keep the promise that helps sweep him into the state’s highest office.” The next line, just given everything we’ve been talking about here, quite cogent, “Mr. Shapiro seems determined to keep children trapped in failing public schools.”

Part IV

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‘Til Mindfulness Do You Part? The New Age Wellness Industry is Targeting Marriage

We’ll be tracking these issues with you as we move ahead, but I want to shift to another cultural issue that’s quite interesting. Of course, the wellness culture is taking over so much of the society.

All you have to do is just watch a little bit of television, look at any major advertising format. You’re going to see an awful lot of wellness stuff out there. One of the things we now know is that it isn’t evenly distributed through the culture. So a lot of this wellness emphasis or the wellness marketing is directed at upwardly mobile young people and in particular those in metropolitan areas. So you’re going to hear a lot more about this and you’re going to see these products thicker on the ground in those places, rather more say rural America or in other sectors of the society.

The Vows column, the Vows section of The New York Times, that’s about weddings just this past Sunday, just yesterday, ran a headline, “They’re starting a new journey with wellness in mind.” Here’s the subhead. “Couples ensure that their weddings reflect the values of health and mindfulness.” Little footnote here, let’s just remember that mindfulness is traced to new thought, new-age concepts that emerged in the United States in the 19th century as an alternative to Christianity, and it’s been a competitor to Christianity ever since. Mindfulness is just the new way of talking about it and, boy, do some people want to talk about it. 

Now this column is indicated to point to trends in the society. The young woman who is mentioned at the beginning of this article, “Now works with wellness brands as a conscious marketing consultant and hosts a podcast focused on mindful living.” But she’s recently been married and we’re told, “While planning their wedding last September, she and her husband Brandon, who runs a content marketing agency and apparel brand, were eager to incorporate some of their favorite wellness practices on the morning of their wedding. They meditated and journaled together, as they often do at home, and incorporated healing crystals and tarot cards into the celebration.”

I promise you, I’m giving this to you just the way the report states it. The day of their wedding, evidently, they’ve been living together already. They’re accustomed to beginning their day with meditation and journaling together. The young woman said, “I feel like weddings are just an extension of people’s energies. We both love, live, and breathe that world.” Evidently, they do. One wedding organizer there in the area said three-quarters of all of the weddings she organizes, “Contained a wellness element.”

If your wedding didn’t contain a wellness element, guess what, you’re in the minority, recently, we’re told. It’s big business too. It always is. It always was. The new thought, new age, all this stuff it’s always been big business, not only a competitor to Christianity in terms of truth claims. Listen to this, “At Ocean Edge Resort and Golf Club in Brewster, Massachusetts wedding groups can enjoy candlelit floating sound baths, acupuncture happy hours, and beach yoga sessions. At Canyon Ranch Woodside in Woodside, California couples and their guests can sign up for spiritual growth sessions, botanical tea making, and strength training workshops.”

What happened to mints and cookies at the reception? Miraval Berkshires Resort and Spa in Lenox, Massachusetts, we are told, “Specifically offers a Mindful Weddings program, which includes spa treatments and guided morning meditation. There’s even an anniversary reflection visit for couples where they can participate in a sacred stone ceremony, hike, or workout in a nature ropes course.” A senior group sales manager at the resort said, “We live in this fast-paced, extremely distracted world where self-care and also relationship care can often take a back seat.” However, if you’re going to move him to the front seat, this article makes very clear, it’s going to cost you. 

Time’s running out, but I just have to tell you more of this article. The young woman also spoke of a woman who was her spiritual mentor and as she went on to describe a self-love ritual, “As someone highly sensitive to others’ energy, I wanted to anchor in my own energy and love before welcoming others into the space.” Well, I guess by all means.

Now we’re also told of another couple this time on another coast. This is Delray Beach, Florida. This couple has, “Also, actively embraced wellness practices as a couple, some of which they integrated into their wedding in May 2023 at The Addison of Boca Raton, Florida.” Now in case, you didn’t make the wedding, I want you to know what took place. The young woman in this couple said, “Wellness and nutrition and all the pieces of health have really been a core foundation of my lifestyle and my relationship with my husband as well. There was wellness sprinkled throughout our entire wedding.”

Well, she tells us exactly what that looks like. “She described the welcome bags that she curated for guests,” with the founder of a firm, “the bags included vitamin supplements and a copy of the five-minute journal, which is designed to promote reflection and gratitude.” You can’t miss this. “The day after their 69-person celebration, the couple hosted a wellness day at The Ray Hotel in Delray Beach where guests were treated to matcha, vitamin B12 shots, and drip IVs containing electrolytes and vitamins claiming to revive the body following alcohol consumption, stress, and more.

Well, there is more, but I never actually believed, I would look at major media covering a trend in weddings that involves shots and a drip IV. But in closing, I just have to say, if you’re going to have this wedding, please, please leave me off the list. Although I’m going to guess, I was never on it.