The COVID pandemic and consequent lockdowns have been a burden on many industries, but in the case of schools, they exposed how little those in charge care about the students.

Schools are shutting down again, though not necessarily because of COVID sickness. However, COVID policies are to blame. Teachers who were already trying to cope with the insufficiency of remote learning are burning out at a much higher rate than they otherwise would have.

Remote learning has been a disaster for everyone, most especially children. This isolation has driven them to greater anxiety. Teaching over the computer is a nightmare. It is incredibly difficult to have any form of classroom discipline under those conditions. Students cannot feel connected to one another. The blue light from screens gives a lot of them headaches. Then you add in the unreliability of the Internet and other technical challenges. When students have gone back to in-person learning, there’s been an uptick in violence and fighting. It’s a never-ending nightmare now that schools are going back to virtual learning because of staffing shortages. Schools have resorted to remote learning as a last-ditch effort to keep teachers from resigning.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, claims the political attention teachers are getting from issues such as Critical Race Theory in the classroom, masking debates, and trying to catch students up is the real reason for the burnout. But she cannot be trusted except to exploit the situation to forward her agenda, which has always been to hold the children hostage to force the hand of the powers that be.

Some schools are choosing to solve the teacher shortage by not having school on Fridays. In Utah’s Canyons School District, for example, there will be no school on Fridays until March.

Then there are the vaccines and the policies that have been put in place to strong-arm everyone to get the jab, including children as young as five. A Los Angeles school district just terminated 496 employees that chose not to get vaccinated. What’s next? Banning children from being able to go to school if they are unvaxxed? It’s more Orwellian than that. School officials will vaccinate without parental consent and even encourage children to keep quiet about it. Let’s also mention how backwards it is to intentionally fire able and willing teachers during a teacher shortage.

Parents are furious, as they should be. Going back to remote learning or having no school at all is giving them serious flashbacks to the horrible days of lockdowns. They are scrambling to find ways to be home with their children or provide childcare if they cannot work from home. Those who are already stay-at-home parents are back to the struggle of helping their child navigate digital learning.

The real victims of this travesty, though, are the children whose education, social development, and sanity have been derailed. The pandemic and digital learning have already stunted their academics. Children are now almost two years behind where they should be in a lot of classes. Even U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy corroborates this fact. In a new report, he said there has been an uptick in depression (25%) and anxiety (20%). Suicide attempts in girls have gone up by 51%, and in boys it’s up 4%. These children’s lack of community has caused them great suffering.

On a broader scale, this retrograde trend in our children’s academics has unrealized consequences for the future. Our children are the next generation of thinkers, makers, builders, and problem-solvers. Can we really call our education system competitive on the world stage when this current generation has lost so much ground on the academic front? Can we compete with China?

This teacher shortage has been a mixed blessing, though. The forced digital learning has exposed the dark underbelly of schools. It has allowed parents to see the tactics of the activist teachers and the agenda of the teachers unions to indoctrinate, alienate, and control our kids. Parents now know. They have seen firsthand the utter depravity that has infiltrated their children’s education, and they have acted accordingly.

Conservative podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey put it this way: “The truth is, our society hates children. From pervasive pedophilia in so many forms to abortion to gender experimentation to COVID policy, kids are constantly being placed on the altar of adult depravity. Only solace is a holy, just God who will one day pour out his wrath.”

She is right on the money. Our kids shouldn’t have to be the sacrificial lambs, our parents shouldn’t be forced to scramble, and our teachers shouldn’t have to be this burnt out.