Schools Reopening? Not So Fast Say Teachers Unions

Schools Reopening? Not So Fast Say Teachers Unions

Schools Reopening? Not So Fast Say Teachers Unions

Christmas Break is ending (yes, we at Victory Girls say “Christmas”), and schools will be reopening soon, right? Hold on — not so fast. If teachers unions have their way, schools in many big cities will remain shuttered.

Because Covid, of course. And especially because of the new Omicron variant.

But teachers unions really, really want to go back to work. After all, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, told us so. She entered the friendly territory of CNN and assured the viewers that schools should be open. But it’s all about testing, testing, testing. Those little crumb crunchers can spread too much disease.

And teachers unions across America are minions of the execrable Randi Weingarten.

 

Unions Don’t Want Schools to Reopen

In Massachusetts, for example, the AFT is pushing for schools to return to remote “learning” (I put that in quotes intentionally). They also want lots of testing. AFT president Beth Kontos said:

“The tests provided by the state allow for testing of all teachers and staff, and that should proceed. It should then be followed by a period of remote learning until the current wave of infections abates.”

In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that “Fulton, DeKalb school districts to start the New Year online–only.” Ninety percent of the city of Atlanta falls within Fulton County, while the remaining ten percent falls within DeKalb. That’s a lot of kids not attending school.

And in Arizona, Rebecca Garelli, self-described “strike leader” for National Educators United, is demanding that all schools across the US be shut down for at least *cough cough* two weeks. Everyone has to protect their “community.” She tweeted:

“#RedforEd educators & allies, please sign this Open Letter to ALL federal and state decision makers. We need to pause in-person learning across the nation for, at minimum, #2Weeks in order to #ProtectOurCommunity.”

“Protect our community” — in other words, our union members. Your kids’ futures? Not so much.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the logo for NEU has a Communist look to it.

Schools/teachers unions

Screenshot: @DeAngelisCorey/Twitter.

 

Then There’s the Chicago Teachers Union

In Chicago, the third largest city in the United States, the Chicago Teachers Union took a vote of its members to see how many wanted to return to remote instruction. And shocker! over 90 percent wanted to go remote — that is, unless the Chicago Public Schools acquiesce to their demands.

CTU president Jesse Sharkey — who, by the way, was a member of the now-defunct International Socialists Organization — sent an email to union members. He wrote:

“Safety committees are the authority on safety in our schools. We can use them to take back control from our principals and CPS. But we need to organize in our buildings to prepare members for action if and when concerns are ignored.”

So Sharkey is urging the union members to start activating their safety committees.

Making demands and threats — that’s the Chicago Way. Did I tell you that Sharkey was once a member of a Socialist Communist organization?

 

The Chicago Way

The CTU tweeted its demands to the Chicago Public Schools:

Notice some of the impossible conditions they want CPS to meet:

  • The CTU wants CPS to provide 300 testing sites and take-home tests for anyone in the schools who want them. Where in the world can anyone get Covid tests these days, much less thousands of them?
  • Plus, CPS should provide KF94, KN95, or N95 to all staff and students. They also need to have tiny sizes available for small children;
  • Finally, if the city of Chicago shows Covid test positivity rate increases over a seven-day period, all in-person learning will stop. Seriously? We’re talking about the highly contagious Omicron variant here. Of course there will be rate increases, especially if the city tests, and tests, and tests.

And if these demands aren’t met, Sharkey is calling for a “schoolwide operational pause.” In other words, a strike. The CTU are experts at closing down schools throughout strikes, too.

 

Schools Should Stay Open

Remote “learning” was a disaster for students during Covid 1.0 in 2020. As Dr. Scott Atlas wrote in his book A Plague Upon Our House (which I highly recommend):

“All who bothered to look also knew that it was extraordinarily harmful to children to close in-person schools. By summer, evidence had accumulated that long-distance learning was a failure.” 

And poor kids pay the biggest price. Writes Atlas:

“Even worse, school closures were widely recognized to be more destructive to working class and poorer children.”

Atlas also describes the harms that come from shutting schools down:

“Data was also showing increasing psychological harms from isolation with skyrocketing calls to suicide hotlines, doubling or tripling of symptoms of depression and anxiety, social withdrawal, and suicidal ideation. . . . And precipitous drops of reported child abuse cases were documented . . . since schools are the number one agency where such abuse is noted.” 

But do the teachers unions care? Don’t hold your breath. They have an obsession with power instead.

 

Remote Learning and Special Education Kids

In Newsweek, the mom of an autistic child wrote how Zoom remote learning failed her disabled and non-verbal child:

“Zoom school for cognitively impaired children was just a heartless throwaway “solution”—almost an outright joke among school officials. What are children who need in person physical and speech therapy going to do with a Zoom session?”

While another mother of an autistic son blasted the National Educators Association in response to their call for total school shutdowns:

“My Autistic son was really affected by remote learning. I worked throughout the pandemic AND was educating my child at home for months to “slow the spread” and “to protect the community.” You have no idea what the working-class people have to go through so you can stay home.”

Heartbreaking, isn’t it? You’d think that “educators” would care. But union activists don’t.

 

Teachers Unions Hold Schools Hostage

The dirty little secret is that teachers unions hold students hostage to their demands because they can. After all, taxpayers are forced to fund teacher salaries through property taxes. In turn, teachers pay their dues to the unions. It’s not like parochial schools, which rely on tuition payments and parental support to remain open. Plus, most parochial school teachers are committed to their vocations — they’re certainly not teaching for the money. I know this because I attended parochial school, sent my kids to them, and have provided speech therapy to children in these schools. And which teachers are not refusing to work? Parochial school teachers.

But the time is coming, warns parent Ian Prior of “Fight for Schools.” Parents are no longer going to put up with this, and payback is . . . well, you know.

The downfall of teachers unions can’t come soon enough. Parents have learned about the indoctrination that leftist teachers have been foisting on their kids through last year’s Zoom classes. Now, with schools potentially closing for a mild Covid variant, they also see that teachers unions don’t give a rat’s tuchus about their children — the most precious little people in their lives. The unions care more about their power.

It’s time to take out the teachers unions for the trash they are.

 

Welcome, Instapundit readers! 

Featured image: Dan Gaken/flickr/cropped/CC BY-ND 2.0.

Written by

Kim is a pint-sized patriot who packs some big contradictions. She is a Baby Boomer who never became a hippie, an active Republican who first registered as a Democrat (okay, it was to help a sorority sister's father in his run for sheriff), and a devout Lutheran who practices yoga. Growing up in small-town Indiana, now living in the Kansas City metro, Kim is a conservative Midwestern gal whose heart is also in the Seattle area, where her eldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live. Kim is a working speech pathologist who left school system employment behind to subcontract to an agency, and has never looked back. She describes her conservatism as falling in the mold of Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles. Don't know what they are? Google them!

8 Comments
  • […] post Schools Reopening? Not So Fast Say Teachers Unions appeared first on Victory Girls […]

  • Chad King says:

    I seem to remember when I was a young child in the 1950s that mothers (including mine) would set up play-dates (although they weren’t called that then) with other children infected with childhood communicable diseases (measles, mumps, German measles), so that all of my siblings and I would be sick at the same time–rather than extending the misery over a couple of months. Imagine doing that now. Some Karen would have your children committed to foster care or the mother thrown in jail for “endangering” their children faster than you could say “Let’s go Brandon.” Perhaps we should return to the days when the greatest generation showed a little common sense and tough love.

  • Ted says:

    Minion: “People with good educations are resisting our mind control, Your Maleficence.”
    Big Guy: “Then let’s make sure the next generations are ignorant! Easy peasey; lemon squeezy!”

  • Ann in L.A. says:

    PATCO

  • Milwaukee says:

    Families need to home school.
    In the 1970s Denver Public Schools had a graduation test for high school. They were among a small handful, less than 10, that did. Too many seniors were flunking. The test was then given at the end of the 11th grade. Failure meant a year of remediation. Eventually the test was given at the end of the 8th grade. Wow…high school could have been four years of remediation. Why not graduate students once they pass the graduation test?

    Mandatory education was pushed by Thomas Jefferson and others since, as a need to have an educated electorate. Clearly they missed the target. People want to learn. Look at all the podcasts out there.
    My suggestions…
    1. Decriminalize school truancy.
    2. Lift GED restrictions and allow students of any age to take the GED.
    3. Move school board elections to the fall, to promote greater voter turnout.
    4. Minimize the list of what teacher unions get to have in their contracts.

    My career teaching, mostly high school, mostly Math, or Maths, went from January 2nd, 1979 to October of 2015. Once upon a time I was even a National Board Certified Teacher, but that was a long time ago.

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  • Rick Caird says:

    I wonder how many of their members will trade their jobs for this tannce.

  • Cameron says:

    We are forced to pay their salaries even if we don’t have children. Take that away from them. Let the parents take the money and send it to the school of their choosing. The problem will self correct inside of 24 hours.

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