Test scores

Re “Gov. Youngkin faults previous administration for dramatic learning loss among students” (Oct. 24): I was dismayed but certainly not surprised to read about Gov. Glenn Youngkin immediately and simplistically pointing a finger at the previous gubernatorial administration for the decline in educational proficiency scores among Virginia’s schoolchildren. Certainly this decline is a concern for all of us, but the Republican claim, made in retrospect, that we should have kept schools open during the pandemic is seriously misguided.

This disease provided an unprecedented dilemma for state and local school administrators. Do you keep schools open and risk further spread of the disease that has killed more than 1 million Americans or do you attempt to educate children remotely? Both were poor options, but if schools had stayed open, one can only imagine the number of teachers who might have been sickened. Then what do you do with all those students? School officials had to take the route that protected the greatest number of people from the disease, and that was to temporarily close schools and teach students remotely.

If Youngkin is so sure that declining proficiency rates are the fault of Democratic governors, how does he reconcile the fact that nationwide the country suffered educational setbacks? Twenty-eight of those states have Republican governors versus 22 states that have Democratic governors. Maybe the governor should be less consumed with scoring political points on a wide variety of educational issues and think about the fact that few courses of action were available to those making very tough decisions during the height of the pandemic.

— Nancy Ford, Virginia Beach