Jake Tapper Doesn’t Want To Play The ‘Blame Game’ On Covid School Closures, But Midterm Voters Do

The National Center for Educational Statistics just released its 2022 assessments of fourth and eighth graders, and the results are, at best, disturbing. According to the report, reading scores for these two grades have dropped 3 points since 2019, the most substantial loss since the 1980s. The math scores are even worse: 5 points for fourth graders and a whopping 8 points for eighth graders. These data are just the latest indicators of the catastrophic effects Covid lockdowns have had on the nation’s children.

While preparing CNN’s dwindling audience for this horror show, Jake Tapper found himself pondering why there’s been no “national conversation” about this topic:

I have to say that I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a national conversation about the damage done to kids because of these school closures. … We can’t just pretend that fifth graders, who are now seventh graders, that didn’t happen. … And not with a blame game; look, it happened, it was criticized. … But here we are. … There needs to be like a bipartisan movement, you know.

If Tapper took a moment to step outside his corporate media bubble, he might realize that this conversation has been going on for well over a year. He might even see that the educational establishment’s contributions to this conversation have been either to gaslight the public into compliance or to intimidate it into silence, usually with the blessing of its political and media allies on the left.

Despite the willful ignorance of Tapper and his ilk, the American public knows exactly who’s to blame for the appalling state of American education. Moreover, they expect the GOP to act decisively against the educrats if they take control of Congress in November.

A Blueprint for Success

Republicans need only look to last year’s gubernatorial election in Virginia for an idea of what voters want from them on this issue. During a debate between Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin and his Democratic counterpart Terry McAuliffe, McAuliffe made the critical error of saying the quiet part out loud about how his party really feels about parental involvement in education; he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

This admission came as conflicts between parents and school officials in deep blue Loudoun County were making national headlines. Yet when given a chance to walk back his statement, McAuliffe doubled down on it, calling opposition to critical race theory a “racist dog whistle.”

In the end, Youngkin’s efforts paid off as he beat McAuliffe by more than 63,000 votes. In the year since, he has enjoyed increasing support from Old Dominion voters, the latest polls placing him at 55 percent approval. Part of this success can be traced to his willingness to take on an intractable educational establishment on issues such as transgender policies and school choice.

The Winds Are Favorable

Issues like education that got Youngkin elected in Virginia remain prominent throughout the rest of the country. A record number of school board