By Christine Rosen
Monday, January 25, 2021
Once Joe Biden became president, we were
told, the nation would finally be ruled by the “party of science” and turn the
corner on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
Alas, the nation’s teachers’ unions did
not get the memo.
Despite mounting scientific evidence that
students can safely return to classrooms, teachers in some of the country’s
largest school districts still refuse to let them do so.
Currently, fewer than one-quarter
of the nation’s school kids are attending school in person on a full-time
schedule. Public school students in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and
other large cities have not been in a classroom since last March. This, despite
the evidence that such closures are harmful to children, and not just educationally.
The isolation and stress of virtual schooling is taking a toll on children’s mental
health as well.
A recent, peer-reviewed study
of more than 100,000 children and school staff called transmission of COVID-19
in schoolchildren “extremely rare.” The study concluded that “schools can stay
open safely in communities with widespread community transmission,” making a
return to in-person education a finding that even the sainted Dr. Anthony Fauci
has said
should be the “default position” for the country.
And yet, while some schools have reopened,
many school districts attempting to finally return to in-person learning in
February are doing so in piecemeal fashion. Even for schools that have
“reopened,” only a small percentage of students are allowed to return to a
classroom—and then, for one or two days per week and only a few hours on those
days. And still, unionized teachers threatening walkouts.
The unions claim schools should remain
entirely virtual in the name of safety and frequently claim that returning to
the classroom is putting their lives at risk. “We can always recapture loss of
learning. But what we know we can’t recapture is the loss of lives,” Washington
Teachers’ Union president Elizabeth Davis told
Politico. Randi Weingarten, president
of the American Federation of Teachers, the largest union in the nation, “We
have a lot of fear right now because there’s been a lack of honesty about what
is and isn’t happening in terms of Covid.”
Last summer, when teachers in D.C. were told they might have to return
in in-person teaching, they piled
dozens of “body bags” with signs like “R.I.P. Favorite teacher” outside the
city’s school administration offices as a protest stunt.
In Chicago, the teachers’ union defended
its members’ right to refuse to show up, even for virtual teaching, by
claiming, “the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and
misogyny.” Compare this attitude to private school teachers in the same city.
As John O. McGinnis writes
in City Journal, “Mostly
non-unionized, they have largely shown up for work, and most private schools
have stayed open for in-person teaching.”
In his inaugural address, Biden declared,
“We can teach our children in safe schools.”
But unions are embracing “safety” rhetoric as a way to avoid returning
to classrooms, all the while using the pandemic as an opportunity to increase
their bargaining power. Meanwhile, children and families suffer the
consequences.
In the fall of 2019 in Washington, D.C.,
for example, the teachers’ union repeatedly staged
walk-outs and “sick-ins” to disrupt online schooling just days before a small
number of the city’s most vulnerable elementary school students were set to
return to classrooms. In January, unions throughout the D.C. metro area staged another “day of resistance”—resistance
to showing up to do their job, that is. Why? As the Washington Post reported, “the Washington Teachers’ Union wants all
members, regardless of their health or living situation, to be able to opt-out
of in-person teaching.”
In Fairfax County, Virginia, last week,
the president of the teachers’ union stated
that teachers shouldn’t be required to return to classrooms until all students are vaccinated (which
experts suggest wouldn’t be possible for another year or two given that current
vaccines have not even been devised for children). This comes after the union
demanded that teachers be sent to the front of the line for vaccination because
they consider themselves “essential” workers.
Despite his optimistic statements about
getting kids back to school, Biden’s reliance on union support suggests he will
be cautious rather than bold about enforcing any plans. Biden’s nominee for
Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, is union-friendly and often calls teachers
“heroes” in media appearances. During a recent meeting
with the nation’s teachers’ unions, he “discussed the need to address the
shared trauma educators and the entire school community are facing.” Frankly,
this does not sound like the tough talk unions deserve.
Joe Biden should take a page from Ronald
Reagan: In 1981, when the nation’s 13,000 air traffic controllers went
on strike after Reagan issued an executive order (backed up by a federal
judge) demanding that they do their jobs, he fired the 11,359 who refused to
return and issued a lifetime ban on their ability to work in the field again.
Air traffic came to a standstill for a short time, but by calling the union’s
bluff, Reagan diminished their power and hired a new generation of controllers
to replace them. Biden should encourage school districts to do the same.
Some already are. Chicago officials
threatened to withhold pay from teachers who refused to show up to work in
their classrooms. In the process, the city exposed
the utter corruption of many of its teachers, who complained that it was “cruel
and illegal” for them not to get paid even after they refused to return to
work.
If the Biden administration won’t deal
firmly with the unions, parents need to organize and start lobbying their
school boards (and, if necessary, recall public officials who put the demands
of teachers’ unions ahead of the wellbeing of children.) Those who can afford
to are already voting with their feet by withdrawing their children from the
public school system. An increasing number of state legislators are considering
proposals for school reform that would allow states to fund students (and allow
more options for school choice) rather than continuing to throw taxpayers’
money at underperforming schools and their unionized teachers. Lawmakers in
Virginia are considering
legislation requiring public schools to teach in-person to receive funding.
In the long term, the teachers’ unions’
insistence that their members should have the option to do their job remotely
could lay the groundwork for their obsolescence. If teachers can’t be made to
teach in person in a classroom and virtual learning is just fine, as they now
argue, why shouldn’t school districts save resources? Fire the current teaching
workforce and replace them with online curricula and fewer, lower-paid,
less-skilled proctors to monitor the students’ screen-based learning. This
would be a subpar educational experience, of course. It’s surely one in which
wealthier parents would not participate. But public officials looking at the
reduced salary and pension costs (and no doubt enamored of the latest
ridiculously inflated claims made by Silicon Valley’s educational
technologists) might even conclude that the benefits are worth the risk.
In the near term, it remains to be seen
how we will be able to fairly assess and respond to the educational and
social-emotional losses experienced by the country’s school kids during this
pandemic. But one assessment is already in: Teachers’ unions, and the elected
officials and teachers who support them, have utterly failed our nation’s
children.
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