How The PTA Sold Out Parents For Politics During Schools’ Biggest Crisis

K-12 schools are in the biggest crisis in memory. Some have not been fully open in a year, despite evidence that schools do not increase the rate of coronavirus in a community when prevention strategies are used. Women have had to leave the workforce to watch their children. Academic achievement is cratering. Some impoverished students have simply dropped off the grid. Meanwhile, magnet schools have taken to deliberately lowering academic standards in the name of social justice.

Everyone is talking about it — except, it seems, the Parent Teacher Association. The PTA has been essentially absent from the public debate on reopening schools (though it does not hesitate to make its thoughts on “Furniture Tip-Over Prevention” known). And in some cases, as with schools’ embrace of divisive racial rhetoric that has alienated parents and led to situations such as the overhaul of America’s highest-scoring math school because too many Asians were succeeding, it has contributed to the discord.