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From the outset, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been politically polarized. But as the pandemic wears on, there are signs this polarization may be starting to collapse.

One key stress point — dissent from Democrats over school closings.

Two recent mainstream media articles, written by progressives, reveal the potential fault lines.

Oakland-based journalist Rebecca Bodenheimer, writing in Politico, and Cleveland urban-planner and writer Angie Schmitt, writing in the Atlantic, told remarkably similar stories of their alienation from progressive communities when they questioned the wisdom of continued K-12 lockdowns.

Both writers found themselves at odds with their friends and political allies in the fall of 2021, as they faced another term of their children learning remotely. As Bodenheimer wrote:

“Spring 2020 had been a disaster for my son when his school in the Oakland Unified School District switched to emergency remote learning. He had recently been diagnosed with ADHD and did not do well with me at home  … My son’s teacher only met with the kids one-on-one on Zoom for 15 minutes a week. Beyond that, parents were given worksheets to do with our kids; there was no actual instruction that spring.”

Meanwhile, Schmitt’s experience with online education for her 5-year-old bordered on the absurd, she wrote:

“My faith in the system deteriorated only as the weeks and months of remote-learning dragged on long past the initial timeline, and my son began refusing to log on for lessons. I couldn’t blame him. Despite his wonderful teacher’s best efforts, online kindergarten is about as ridiculous as it sounds, in my experience. I remember logging on to a ‘gym’ class where my son was the only student present. The teacher was clearly embarrassed.”

Both writers became advocates for school re-openings, but their efforts met with indifference from school and government officials — and open hostility from long-time political allies.

Bodenheimer wrote:

“Members of the parent group I helped lead were consistently attacked on Twitter and Facebook by two Oakland moms with ties to the teacher’s union. They labeled advocates’ calls for schools reopening ‘white supremacy,’ called us ‘Karens,’ and even bizarrely claimed we had allied ourselves with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s transphobic agenda.”

“I probably should have inferred that becoming a school-reopening advocate would not go over well in my progressive Oakland community,” Bodenheimer wrote, “but I didn’t anticipate the social repercussions or the political identity crisis it would trigger for me.”

Bodenheimer said her own experience, as a self-described progressive in “ultra-lefty Oakland,” is just one example of how people across the political spectrum have become frustrated with Democrats’ position on school reopenings.

For her part, Schmitt wrote:

“When I tried to speak out on social media, I was shouted down and abused, accused of being a Trumper who didn’t care if teachers died. On Twitter, mothers who had been enlisted as unpaid essential workers were mocked, often in highly misogynistic terms. I saw multiple versions of ‘they’re just mad they’re missing yoga and brunch.’”

The outcome for both Schmitt and Bodenheimer was the same: a reluctant decision to place their children in private or charter schools where in-person instruction had resumed.

For Bodenheimer, who was deeply committed to public, bilingual education in the Oakland public schools, the decision was particularly wrenching:

“I was a proud alumna of San Francisco public schools and planned for my kids to attend Oakland public schools, despite their reputation for behavioral and academic problems. As an interracial, bilingual/bicultural family, what we wanted was for our son to attend a dual-language immersion program with plenty of other kids of color.  But I began to fear that even in-person school in fall 2021 was at risk…

“Even after teachers were prioritized for vaccination, there was no urgency to get kids back to the classroom. My dad offered to help pay for private school, and we applied. Sending my kid to private school was accompanied by a lot of angst.”

The intransigent commitment of so many on the left to school closures flies in the face of the evidence and expert advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics first urged a return to school in July 2020. In February 2021, when The New York Times surveyed 175 pediatric-disease experts, 86%  recommended in-person school even if no one had been vaccinated.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University, told The Guardian:

“This is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.

“We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt.”

A Bloomberg article noted in March that children in the U.S. were about 10 times as likely to be killed in a car crash as by COVID. Closing school for more than a year was disproportionate in the same way that forbidding parents to drive would have been.

While Omicron case numbers rise, the evidence shows the variant is far less virulent than prior strains for all age groups, including children. Nonetheless, many school districts have reversed their decision to go back to in-person instruction this term, even though experts expect the variant to be in decline by the end of this month.

“I’m still attempting to hold onto the progressive label while calling out the policies I see as antithetical to it,” Bodenheimer said, “but the longer fellow progressives support new school closures and other policies that restrict kids’ lives in order to allay the anxieties of adults, and that have been shown to cause far more harm than benefit, the more alienated I feel.”

Meanwhile, there are signs that issues of education and the pandemic could become a wedge issue in the upcoming midterms. Analyzing the outcomes of last November’s elections, Jonathan Chait wrote:

“Evidence does indicate that education, an issue that has favored Democrats for decades, has recently turned into a liability. There are polls showing Terry McAuliffe performing substantially worse among parents of K-12 students than among the overall electorate, and other polls showing Glenn Youngkin winning voters who care most about education.”

Schmitt wrote:

“A low point for me was when Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe inflated child COVID-hospitalization numbers on the campaign trail. It was almost Trump-like. (If I lived in Virginia, I admit I probably would have had to sit out the recent gubernatorial election, in which the Republican candidate beat McAuliffe.)”

Increasingly, progressives like Schmitt and Bodenheimer are seeking a more nuanced, risk-stratified approach to the pandemic — one that weighs costs and benefits, as The Great Barrington Declaration advocated for early in the pandemic.

No doubt their experiences echo those of many parents across the political spectrum. Could their reluctant conversions signal a seismic shift in public opinion regarding the lockdown of our children’s education?

Only time will tell, but a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute shows Democrats still favor draconian measures to enforce vaccination — sentiments out of step not only with Republicans but with the majority of Americans.

According to the poll, 59% of Democrats would favor state-mandated home confinement for those who refuse a vaccine while 61% of all likely voters oppose it.

Almost half of all Democrats (48%) believe the government should be able to fine or imprison those who question the efficacy of vaccines in the media or online. Only 27% of all voters support such measures.

According to the poll, “Forty-five percent of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters.”

With opinions so out of step with the rest of the country on fundamental issues of censorship and personal liberty, the Democrats may face a serious reckoning at the polls in 2022, said Grinnell College National Poll Director Peter Hanson.