Randi Weingarten and her teachers union are fighting to rewrite the history of school closures
School closures during the pandemic have had a devastating impact on at least one generation of children. Crowds of children
fell years behind in math, reading, science and general learning. America’s youth also experienced significant related increases mental illness, SuicideAnd obesity. In exceptional cases, children who were forced out of the classroom suffered nightmarish torture and ill-treatment without anyone knowing.
Over the past year, Republican lawmakers have focused on how American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten and her union threatened the prospects and well-being of American children during the pandemic.
Vineyard
called The Trump administration’s proposal to reopen in-person classes in 2020 is “reckless” and “cruel.” While the AFT resisted a return to real work, union members joined in and orchestrated it Sick leave and go so far Call Reopening schools racist.
Weingarten and her ever-striking union were also reportedly instrumental in shaping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines, once again preventing a widespread return to normality.
Instead of taking responsibility for the present, the AFT is now trying to rewrite the past.
The AFT, which has endorsed President Joe Biden for 2024 and donated millions of dollars
exclusively to Democrats in the 2022 election cycle, released a report last week he accused Republican lawmakers of building “a false narrative about the AFT and school closures” with the intent to “demonize and scapegoat educators and their unions.”
The report, titled “Looking for Scapegoats: Republicans’ Failed Plan to Blame the American Federation of Teachers for School Closings During the Pandemic,” refutes claims made by Republicans on the House subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, including those made by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.)
Suggestion that the AFT was granted “unusual” access to draft, edit and review official guidance for the reopening of public schools.
Scalise was referring to published communications between Weingarten and former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in the days leading up to the center’s February 12, 2021, announcement of guidance “Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation” that dashed all of Americans’ hopes children may return to face-to-face classes en masse.
The New York Post
reported that the CDC, the Biden White House and the AFT reportedly coordinated not only on the language of the guidelines but also on how they would be presented to the press.
For example, the AFT suggested that the CDC mention providing remote work options for teachers who are said to be at higher risk of infection or live with a high-risk “household member,” and recommend closing schools in areas with increased risk of infection, supposedly high COVID-19 levels. Transfer rates.
The CDC originally planned to allow school instruction regardless of transmission rates, but appears to have caved to the union.
Although the AFT now seems interested in painting a different picture, Walensky confirmed this in a congressional hearing in June.
Weingarten stressed last week that Republicans’ attempt to shed light on the AFT’s role in maintaining school closures amounts to an attempt at “protection.” [President Trump]which has actually caused confusion and increased people’s fears of going against what countries in Europe have been doing, which is prioritizing schools over bars, restaurants and commerce.”
With former President Donald Trump and parts of his administration
advocated To return to face-to-face teaching after the initial closures, the AFT called for “security strikes” if their demands were not met in June 2020. reported Politico.
“If authorities fail to protect the safety and health of those we represent and serve, as our Executive Board decided last week, nothing is off the table – not advocacy, not protests, not negotiations, not grievances or lawsuits, or, if necessary… “and as a last resort, security strikes authorized by a local union,” Weingarten said.
While Weingarten suggested the strikes were partly about ensuring the safety of children, then-Deputy Education Secretary Mitchell Zais weighed in
emphasized“Research and science continue to suggest that it is safer, healthier and better for students to attend school full-time.”
Weingarten later gave the game away.
“As much as we want to feel ‘normal’ again, we can do better than the old ‘normal’ of narrow test-based accountability systems, vast inequality and chronic underfunding,” Weingarten said in July 2021. “We have “a rare opportunity to reimagine public school education and pursue bold initiatives that will help all of our children succeed.”
The pandemic presented the AFT with an opportunity that it did not fail to take full advantage of.
Now that the pandemic is history and the opportunity has been seized, Weingarten – who previously claimed that criticism of it “will lead to violence”; peddled falsehoods to portray Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a negative light; and suggested that parental opposition to left-wing curricula is “the way wars start” – said On Tuesday, it’s time to focus on real solutions for children and communities, not “cynical politics.”
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