I am no Fauci fan, but the truth needs to be spoken. The failure in K-12 education is with the parents.
I home schooled child # 4, and I can tell you that elementary school is unequivocally a waste of time. My daughter and I read the classics together, she learned math and grammar and we observed science in real life. All this was done every day before lunch time.
The “ Covid backslide” is a parenting failure. Many parents worked remote. Could they really not give their children math workbooks or spend 30 minutes/day reading with them?
Let’s not blame the government for what is really the failure of parents to parent their children.
I fully agree that parents are a big part of the problem.
And think about the people who are now — what? — 10 to 25 years old? I consider this a very damaged age group. Those damaged people are going to be the next wave of parents. Does anyone think they are up to the task? Will they do a fine job of raising the children to be born over the next upcoming 10 years? I think things will continue to go downhill.
I was a smart young kid many decades ago and I told my parents that elementary school was boring and filled with stupid people.
Fortunately they bought me “adult” books I could read on every possible subject—so I could actually learn stuff.
These days with the Internet there are no more valid excuses not to home-school kids.
You make a good point, since Covid-sequestered kids would have had to have at least one person of significant age/ability home with them & they should have been encouraging learning. “Zoom” classes were complete jokes, with distractions and teacher inability to keep track of each student and how they were faring.
Pretty much anyone who homeschools knows how easy it can be to foster a child’s natural curiosity and desire to learn by simply reading books together, explaining math & science in daily activities (cooking & baking, chores, card games, Lego, etc.) and listening to them and see what learning opportunities could come from reinforcing their interests.
Even parking “Junior” in front of the TV or computer with educational shows or something like Kahn Academy for an hour a day would have helped greatly.