Like most parents of school-aged children, I wasn’t surprised to recently read that educational test scores of students in the Flathead Valley, as they have across the nation, declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. Does anyone, even if they don’t have children, find the results surprising? All aspects of our lives were affected and will continue to be.
I also don’t find it surprising that the test scores of our local students were above the nation’s averages, as the quality of education accessible to our children is superb. The heroic efforts of our schools and educators to adapt to the pandemic landscape, especially during the spring 2020 lockdown, was no small feat. Last spring, the Brookings Institute released a report announcing that “academic normalcy” for students, educators and parents remains to materialize. Between a severe shortage of educational staff, high rates of absenteeism, likely due to quarantine measures and other illnesses, and school closures, the negative impacts of the pandemic echo in the hallways of schools across America.
Here’s what surprises, saddens and shocks me: America’s response to mass school shootings. Instead of enacting common-sense legislation that could strengthen the nation’s gun laws to assist in preventing deadly massacres in schools, desperate, grieving families are left with the stock response of “thoughts and prayers.” Although each horrific massacre is different, there is one commonality: the type of weapon used and how accessible it is. An AR-15-style rifle has been used by young gunmen in the majority of mass school shootings, including at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, Sandy Hook Elementary, and more recently, in St. Louis.
As the father of two sons in high school in Kalispell and the author of “Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America,” Ryan Busse explained that AR-15-style rifles are more available than they’ve ever been – a dramatic and rapid increase from hundreds of thousands of these types of guns owned by Americans to now tens of millions in the span of two decades. They are classified as a rifle, so the purchase age is 18, the same as it is if a .22 is bought for hunting. The age to purchase a pistol remains at 21. Busse points out that the country has changed but its gun laws haven’t. Although there is wide support across the country for legislation to strengthen gun safety laws, like universal background checks and closing the gun show loophole, most Republican politicians spread hyperbolic ideological conspiracies instead of taking action.
It is not normal that our children are subjected to gun violence in schools, and it is not normal that politicians suffer no political repercussions for siding with the gun industry instead of taking a common-sense approach to ensure the safety of our children at school. When studies are conducted in schools about test scores, I think we should also demand a report on what’s being done to keep guns out of the curriculum. If the pandemic has altered everything in our lives, why should mass shootings remain part of our “academic normalcy?”
Maggie Doherty is a writer and book reviewer who lives in Kalispell with her family.