We know how to close this gap, damning media blackout on Charlotte and other commentary

Schools beat: We Know How To Close This Gap

Test scores show American kids lost huge ground during COVID, and “Black and Hispanic students slid even further behind, widening gaps that were already troubling” — even though we know it’s “possible to erase the racial achievement gap in less than two years, by applying simple reform principles to the worst-performing schools,” fumes Roland Fryer at The Wall Street Journal.

His research on “which practices truly boosted student learning” clearly showed: “What mattered most were five concrete, replicable practices: more instruction time, high expectations, frequent teacher feedback, data-driven instruction and high-dosage tutoring.”

Applying these principles in low-performing Houston schools proved it could “close the racial achievement gap in math in under two years.”

This “can work anywhere, if we have leaders with the courage to act.”

Media watch: Damning Blackout on Charlotte

“A video showing the murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on public transport in Charlotte, North Carolina, has sent shockwaves round the world,” observes Mary Harrington at UnHerd.

It’s also “reignited debate over the widening ideological gulf in news reporting,” particularly given the “media omertà” as many outlets failed to report the story.

Why? The lefty insists that “violence is preponderantly and unjustly perpetrated by white people,” especially cops, against blacks.

The video shows “no ambiguity”: a “senseless attack on a defenceless lone white woman by a black man.” “Progressive” outlets “would do well to consider that a reputation for objectivity turns not just on how a story is reported but also if it is,” especially when it “challenges comfortable ideological narratives.”

From the right: Some Vax Mandates Make Sense

The medical establishment’s pandemic-era “lies and failures” give Americans “every right to be skeptical” about public health directives, acknowledges the Washington Examiner’s editorial board.

But “Florida is making a grave mistake” in eliminating all vaccine mandates. “Vaccines have been saving American lives since” the advent of the smallpox vaccine 200 years ago, and the Supreme Court upheld vax mandates in 1905.

States have “been using their police power to keep epidemics under control ever since” because “vaccine mandates work.”

Florida will let parents “opt out” of vaccines based on “religious and personal beliefs” — a “ban on vaccine mandates” that puts “all of Florida at risk.”

The state is “playing Russian roulette” with this unscientific decision.

Free-speech patrol: Facebook’s Promising Turn

“The free speech community needs to support Meta” as it moves to allow more speech on its platforms, argues Jonathan Turley at USA Today.

“Many in the free speech community saw Meta as the embodiment of the anti-free speech movement.”

But after Elon Musk highlighted “extensive coordination by the government with academia and social media companies to censor speech,” Meta “founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized” for Facebook’s past censorship and pledged “to restore free speech protections.”

And X “has roughly 600 million users,” Facebook, “more than 3 billion.”

Thus: “Musk slowed the progress of the anti-free speech movement. Zuckerberg could reverse the direction.” “If Meta stays on this course, we could finally have a coalition of the willing to fight for free speech on a global scale.”

Democrat: To Beat Trump, Need a Real Agenda

New polling “shows President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to just 46 percent” as “public opinion on how he’s handling the economy and crime is worsening,” notes Douglas E. Schoen at The Hill.

But Trump still “maintains a durable floor of support” that Democrats shouldn’t ignore.

To win the midterms, “they’ll have to assemble an aggressive plan on inflation, security and border control — not just MAGA opposition.”

And party leaders must “recognize that resistance is not enough to win the White House.” Voters want “practical solutions to their everyday problems.”

Trump’s weakness gives Democrats a chance “to reset their message and develop an effective agenda.”

But his “decline in the polls can swiftly disappear if Democrats retreat to old habits.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board