Some Democrats were school reopening stars. Joe Biden was not.

Biden’s presidential campaign fear-mongered about school safety and then, once in office, he ignored high schools with catastrophic consequences for teenagers.

There’s a White House discourse emerging that one of President Joe Biden’s early successes was reopening schools. The tweet below was retweeted by White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain. And Klain himself has frequently boasted of Biden’s efforts to reopen schools.

The reality, though, is that while some prominent Democrats — especially in the Northeast — put a lot on the line to reopen schools, Biden’s rhetoric — and the rhetoric of those around him — was unhelpful toward achieving the goal of reopening schools during the 2020–2021 academic year. (Yes, the Biden administration made a large pot of money available in spring 2021, but state and local decisions about reopening schools were almost…