An Instance of Fraud In the Public Schools

Via PJ Media, a story from San Francisco that I suspect is all too common across the country:

Great news. A sixth-grader received glowing grades in P.E. and Social Studies from her teachers at a middle school in year three of San Francisco Unified School District’s COVID-19 annus horribilis. School records show that the unidentified girl received two As as a student at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School.

Bad news. She hadn’t gone to the school the entire year.

Worse news. The school district had been counting her as a student, thus getting federal funds for the entire year also.

This girl transferred to a private school but was still carried on the public school books for funding purposes, and got As from some of her teachers. A complete fraud.

Of all the fiascos associated with covid “response,” closing the public schools at the insistence of teachers’ unions was the worst. “Remote learning” was bad for almost all students, and a joke for millions who were carried on the books despite a total failure to participate. Many students lost a year to two years of learning which they will never recover. This is, in my opinion, a crime for which the teachers’ unions bear primary responsibility.

How badly did the shutdowns damage our children’s education? The yellow line on this chart, from my state of Minnesota, shows how per pupil spending has steadily increased over the years. The gray and blue lines show standardized test scores in reading and math, respectively. The basic story is more spending for worse results, but look at the last two years:

The teachers’ union, Education Minnesota, blocked all standardized testing in 2020 because union leaders knew the scores would reveal the catastrophic failure of “remote learning.” Hence the gap in that year. But now note the dots that show results for 2021, when testing resumed. We are witnessing a collapse in the quality of public education, which was already terrible.

And the situation isn’t going to improve until the power of the teachers’ unions is broken.

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