ActionNewsJax deserves a half a Wink for its work on school grades.

Reporters for the station actually looked at data, which few in the media bother to do these days.

They found a large number of low grades in the local public schools and also took note that they were lower than grades in previous years.

But then they went astray.

Trying to suggest a solution, which really wasn’t in their purview, they went straight to what one parent was demanding – abandoning tests.

This is no solution.

Big Education does not like standards and accountability because they show how students are learning, or not learning.

People are free to draw any conclusion from them, but they are fact.

For example, they could say the grades are lower because many students are learning via Zoom classes rather than being in a classroom.

Fair enough. That probably is true. The TV reporters found about one in four students in middle and high schools who stay at home are getting D or F grades, which is worse than those attending school are getting.

But in our view that suggests an alternative to abandoning the measurement of what children have learned – put them back in school.

Big Education is fighting against that approach, railing about “high stakes testing” and “underfunded schools” instead.

Grades are not everything. They measure what they measure and they are useful tools for determining what schools are doing with the billions of dollars they are paid to educate children.

To monkey with the grades or abandon them altogether would not help the students. Putting them back in the classroom would help.

Stanford University researchers say the long-term effects of the lost study time caused by the Red Chinese virus will be harsh, not only to the children but to American prosperity in general.

Returning to normal as soon as possible will minimize that loss.