The following article has been authored by a non-clinician.
It’s startling that in the two greatest challenges government schools have faced in our lifetime, Democratic officials have eagerly embraced the side that does the most damage to the students on both issues.
George Shultz, who died last week, wrote an opinion piece in 2003 for The New York Times that explains the first crisis referenced: School desegregation.
This was when the USA did have isolated instances of the dreaded "institutional racism," all in states run by Democrats.
"In 1970, seven states — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina — continued to enforce the dual school system," Schultz wrote.
"This was in clear defiance of the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, which declared dual school systems to be unconstitutional," he continued. "It was also in defiance of a 1969 court decision ordering an end to further delay."
Sixteen years after the Supreme Court ruled that 'separate but equal' was inherently unequal, Democratic states in the South were still defying the law of the land and illegally preventing black students from attending schools with whites.
Schultz — a lifelong Republican — spearheaded the effort to persuade those Democratically-run states to finally obey the law.
Groups representing the leadership from each state were brought to Washington, D.C. for talks.
Schultz orchestrated a presentation that showed each state just how untenable their refusal was.
He invited Attorney General John Mitchell to give his thoughts on the situation for two reasons.
The first, he was the chief law enforcement officer in the nation.
And the second, because Democratic leaders mistakenly thought that Mitchell would be sympathetic to their segregationist views.
What Mitchell said was remarkable then, and is truly amazing in today’s legal environment where it seems the Justice Department eagerly acts as the enforcement wing of the left.
As Schultz tells it, Mitchell told the meeting, "'I am attorney general, and I will enforce the law,' he growled in his gruff, pipe-smoking way. He offered no judgments about whether this was good, bad or indifferent. "'I will enforce the law,' he repeated. With that, he left."
The Democratic Party got the message.
That fall government schools in all seven states finally admitted black children to formerly white schools.
A former columnist for The New York Times summed up the effort, "There's no doubt about it — the Nixon administration accomplished more in 1970 to desegregate Southern school systems than had been done in the 16 previous years, or probably since."
Today, the second kind of government school crisis is different.
It’s not that some children in Democrat states can’t go to some schools.
It’s that no children in those states can go to any schools.
An unholy coalition of power-mad Democratic representatives and teacher unions have united to keep children out of school to meet a 'threat' that apparently doesn't even harm children.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., — who is a doctor himself — says it’s time for schools to reopen. He recently told "Justice with Judge Jeanine" that, "Being at home without any instruction . . . for a lot of kids is a disaster."
Paul pointed out that locked-out students have lost almost an entire year of instruction. Academic research, he added, has found that students lucky enough to return to in-school instruction have "already lost ground" compared to years past, pre-pandemic.
The left never tires of telling us how much they supposedly care about the children.
So if that’s the case, why aren’t schools open?
The answer is teacher unions want the schools to stay closed, and union money cancels science.
Fox News looked at the situation, recently report that, "According to the Center for Responsive Politics, teacher’s unions upped their political spending to $43.7 million during the 2020 election, leaning heavily Democratic in their donations. The numbers reveal just 2 percent of teacher’s union donations in the 2020 cycle went to Republicans."
For Democrats, money is more important than science. In turn, schools remain closed while students waste time with distance-boredom.
Paul put forth the situation clearly.
"When is the union going to actually care about teaching our kids?" he asked.
"They have all these unreasonable demands even though . . . the CDC, which is overly cautious, is saying that schools can open," the Kenutcky senator declared.
With this crisis, there won’t be a Biden administration equivalent of George Schultz working behind the scenes to open schools.
The only hope for parents is private school or organizing other parents to put enough unrelenting pressure on local, state, and federal Democratic politicians so that they are forced open government schools.
In 1970, schools were kept closed to Black students because of racism.
Today, schools are kept closed due to teacher union money.
In both instances Democratic decisions penalize students.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with addedhumor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.