Declining test scores, social skills caused by school boards and teachers unions, mother says

A mother of four blamed her local school board and teachers unions across the country for the social and academic decline her kids have experienced over the past two years.

"I honestly think the school boards are very selfish," Kristin Jackson, whose kids attend public school in Fairfax County, Virginia, told Fox News. "I don't think they have the best interests of kids at all."

Average reading scores among 9-year-olds dropped five points compared to 2020, the sharpest decline in 30 years, while math scores decreased for the first time in history, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Jackson said school closures over the COVID-19 pandemic — implemented by her local school board and pushed by national teachers unions — led to her kids suffering academically and socially. She said her third-grade son tested below the third-grade reading level at the end of the last school year. 

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Virtual learning "definitely did not help that younger generation," Jackson told Fox News. "The masks did not help with visual learning, and hearing the teachers speak on the computer did not help at all." 

In Fairfax County Public Schools, one of the largest districts in the country, students' reading scores decreased 10% from 2019 through 2021, according to the Virginia Department of Education's most recently available data. Math scores dropped 30%.

While her older children didn't decline academically, Jackson said they suffered socially. She said her ninth-grade daughter struggled to engage with other students and make friends.

"Socially, yes, she was depressed, isolated," Jackson told Fox News. 

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"When the teachers had asked to show your face on the camera, she did not," Jackson continued. "Many kids did not want to show their face on the camera. Half of them were probably sleeping."

Even when hybrid learning began in spring 2021, the mother of four said her daughter continued to struggle with communication due to the mask mandates. 

"Mental health-wise it was not healthy," Jackson said. "It was very isolating for a lot of teenagers, especially the girls."

Scientific studies have found masks make it harder to hear and understand speech and to identify facial expressions and emotions — skills necessary for children during early development.

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Jackson's daughter has begun to rebound as mandates lift and with classes returning to normal, the mother told Fox News.

"She is learning how to engage," Jackson said. "She's definitely come out of her little box, so she's doing a lot better."

Jackson criticized prolonged school closures and mask mandates as a "choice" school districts made that "a lot of parents don’t like it." She also said school boards nationwide "don’t really put effort into the kids’ education enough versus politics" and spend too much time posturing over diversity and gender identity issues.

Many school board meetings across the country have become battlegrounds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with issues like mask mandates, virtual learning, critical race theory and gender identity driving heated debate.

Fairfax County schools have repeatedly drawn national attention on such topics. Most recently, documents were revealed showing Fairfax teachers being trained to help students with gender transitions without parental consent. 

"I think school should be focused on academics, math, reading scores versus other things that should be left at the house," Jackson told Fox News. It's "the school system taking rights away from the parents." 

"It is the school system being the parent instead of a place to learn," she said.

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Jackson also blamed teachers unions for pushing strict COVID-19 guidelines on schools.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board last week wrote that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten was behind students' academic decline, arguing that she pushed school shutdowns "as long as she possibly could before parents revolted."

Weingarten said in response that "rather than divide and distract, politicians of all stripes should focus on what children need, from reading, math and music to mental-health support and pathways to careers and colleges. Teachers deserve our ear and our help, not shame and blame."

But Jackson recalled teachers unions' staunch advocacy for school closures and mask mandates.

"I watched Weingarten," the Virginia mother said. "From my observation, it feels more of forced control versus letting the parents make the best decision for their family."

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Jackson said she "would like to see the school board actually have a focus and be motivated, care about the kids," to get students back on track educationally. She added that she "won’t be doing virtual again" something else were to force school closures.

"I will consider homeschooling," Jackson said. "Private school is also an option because the private schools stayed open."

Neither the Fairfax County School Board nor the American Federation of Teachers responded to requests for comment.