Parents’ rights activists criticized COVID-related school closures for years. The New York Times caught up with reality in a new report showing just how far behind students now are, including students in Philadelphia who are more than a year behind in math.

New reporting from The New York Times broke down the data on the harmful effects of long-term school closures on a generation of students and their education, coming to the same conclusions as conservatives had years before.

The Times’ attempts to gloss over months of resistance from leading Democrat elected officials and liberal-aligned teachers unions to reopen schools by writing upfront in the piece “there is broad acknowledgement…that did not significantly stop the spread of Covid.” The attempt has caught the attention of on conservative commentators, with The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman noting those who saw school lockdowns as a net negative for students were accused of being “anti-science killers of teachers and children.”

At least one local Philadelphia outlet reported similar findings in August of 2023, noting that Philadelphia students “lost nearly a full grade level in math” as a result of the disruption in in-person learning due to the pandemic. The Philadelphia statistics are nearly twice as bad as the national average, which according to The Daily Signal’s analysis of The Times’ reporting, was a learning loss of more than half a grade in math for districts that were entirely remote for the 2020-2021 school year.

Even past the 2020-2021 school year, Pennsylvania teachers unions were attempting to strongarm school boards into maintaining COVID policies that would do little to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus disease while doing great damage to students’ education. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President Nina Esposito-Visgitis complained to local press about the city’s school board voting to make masks optional for students for the 2022-2023 school year.

Even still, the effects of Pittsburgh School District’s pandemic policies have a long tail. Local reporting showed more than a third of district students missed enough class time to be considered “chronically absent.” One area principal suggested the “academic and social-emotional learning loss” from Covid lockdowns have spread her staff thin as schools struggle to find solutions for the rise in truancy.

These lockdowns, though devastating for a generation of children, opened the eyes of some to the dangers of a “deeply flawed educational system.” Former teacher Rachel Langan, who considered herself a “school choice opponent”, said the pandemic made her reconsider her “unfailing commitment to public education” when she saw public schools closed and private schools open for in-person instruction. It’s a sentiment shared by many Pennsylvanians: polling shows 67% of those asked support scholarships for students to attend alternatives to public schools.

Despite the widespread support, Pennsylvania elected officials have retreated from their pro-school choice pledges. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro championed school choice during his campaign. Yet a few months into his term, Shapiro used a line-item veto in the state’s budget to kill a voucher program at the insistence of the American Federation of Teachers and Pennsylvania State Education Association.

In a previous election, current Republican candidate Dave McCormick blasted the school lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying “parents should be deciding what is best for their children, not teachers’ unions and special interests.”

The devastating impact of school closures during the pandemic is likely to continue to be a perennial campaign issue as students’ lack of progress becomes more evident.