DOE's Carr: We Didn't Really Have 'a Lot of Choice' with Closing Schools, Health Experts Told Us 'to Close the Schools'

On Monday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics in the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education Peggy Carr stated that she doesn’t know “if there was a lot of choice” when it came to keeping schools closed for as long as they were during the coronavirus pandemic because health experts were “telling us to close the schools, and the districts and the states had to do what was best for the children.” Carr also argued that now, we need to focus on things going forward.

Host Erica Hill asked, “In the simplest terms, when we look at the education — the learning loss here, was closing schools for so long a mistake?”

Carr responded, “Well, you know, I don’t know if there was a lot of choice. The health experts [were] telling us to close the schools, and the districts and the states had to do what was best for the children. What I think we need to focus on now is moving forward. There’s a lot of learning that has to take place, and not just during the day. After school, extended daytime, we need to do what is necessary to move forward.”

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