Estimated 230,000 Students in 21 States “Disappeared” From Public Schools During Pandemic

We all have heard of the learning difficulties that children suffered during the pandemic.

We are also aware of the obesity, substance abuse and mental health crises that have been triggered by the pandemic response.

However, few people realize that thousands of children have quit school after being summarily expelled by their school for COVID fears.

The majority of people put education on hold, but this group of kids saw it stop. And, I would argue, much of the increase in crime in America’s cities can be traced to these kids who have left civilization behind in favor of barbarian life.

“Hundreds of thousands of students around the country disappeared from public schools during the pandemic…an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for… In short, they’re missing.”https://t.co/E3nL7oEhkX

— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) February 12, 2023

She’d be a senior right now, preparing for graduation in a few months, probably leading her school’s modern dance troupe and taking art classes.

Instead, Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts’ public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then.

She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere.

Public schools have been a source of love and hate for children since their infancy. Yes, I did.

Schools are best for their social aspect, and not the educational. I found school boring. But, it is where you make friends. It’s where you meet people. While education is provided in schools, many students find the social aspects of school to be most appealing.

The government’s response to the pandemic took away all the best parts of school for students, and made the educational part of it much worse. Staring at a computer screen for hours a day while being lectured to by teachers who sound like the voices in John Fetterman’s head was excruciating for most students; hence the learning loss.

Some people felt that opting out was the best option. They did.

An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn’t move out of state, and they didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data.

In short, they’re missing.

“Missing” Students received crisis-level assistance in 2020, after schools were closed nationwide due to the pandemic. Since then, they have been a budgeting problem. Some state officials and school leaders expressed concern about the situation. Their districts were faced with fiscal challenges if these students didn’t come back. Each student represents money from the federal, state, and city governments.

Gone is the urgency to find the students who left — those eligible for free public education but who are not receiving any schooling at all. In the early days of the pandemic school was not open. To reach out to and reengage children, staff went door-to–door.. These efforts were mostly unsuccessful.

“Everyone is talking about declining enrollment, but no one is talking about who’s leaving the system and why,” said Tom Sheppard, a New York City parent and representative on the city’s Panel for Educational Policy.

“No one,” He said: “is forthcoming.”

This is public education as it was meant to be: Students have left the school system. It is a budget crisis and not a social one. The public schools exist more for the benefit and parasitism of the bureaucrats that run them than for the students or the society.

Schools are falling apart due to insane policies which predate the pandemic as well as the Leftist anti-discipline ideology.

I can’t imagine what life is like for teachers these days. While I’m critical of public schools and many teachers, the vast majority of teachers are there because they love teaching. Teachers and students both suffer from the coddling of the “bad eggs”, which makes life difficult for them. Ironically, the teachers’ unions have helped make things worse for teachers, not better.

Stanford and AP identified many missing students. But they are not just a few. This analysis shows thousands of students who might have dropped out of school, or missed out on the opportunity to attend. Reading basics School routines for kindergarten and the first grade.

That’s thousands of students who matter to someone. There are many students who are struggling to re-enter school, work, or everyday life.

“That’s the stuff that no one wants to talk about,” said Sonja Santelises, the chief executive officer of Baltimore’s public schools, speaking about her fellow superintendents.

Ah, the irony. Baltimore school officials expressed concern for students. This is one of the least productive and expensive school districts in the nation.

Children have suffered irreparable damage as a result of the pandemic response. The public schools have been operated more for the benefit the adults than the children for decades. This was evident for everyone except the blind.

Randi Weingarten was the American Federation of Teachers’ head. She was an architect of this disaster and still a hero of Left. Her sole focus during the pandemic was ensuring that teachers didn’t have to teach in the schools, and her sole focus since schools returned to in-person teaching has been to increase school budgets.

Along with Washington bureaucrats and local decision-makers she was the author of this catastrophe. She is still a hero to many.

The Democrats and President Biden are now focusing on the public schools bureaucracy grabbing children at ever younger ages. As if the public schools bureaucracies haven’t proven their inability to perform the most basic tasks. The biggest blow to child mental wellbeing since World War II has been dealt to the mental health of children by teachers, counselors and bureaucrats.

Unfortunately, the majority of school board members are chosen by the same bureaucracy. Unions are political machines that overwhelm ordinary voters, who don’t know much about the candidates.

This problem can be solved by school choice. Private schools and some charter schools didn’t close down while the public schools insisted on remote learning. Parents who could afford private schools opted to send their children out of the public school system.

The economic circumstances of the poorest children mean that they are unable to make choices. They are the most vulnerable and least taken care of by bureaucracies, whose primary concern is their budget.

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