After more than a year of suffering through remote learning, children are back in schools across the country.
The revisionist historians at the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers would now like parents to believe that schools reopened because of the efforts of teachers unions. But parents aren’t having it. They know their children are back in schools in spite of those unions, not because of them.
Let’s revisit a few of the tactics used by teachers unions to keep children at home.
The Washington Teachers’ Union, an affiliate of AFT, held a sickout strike to stop schools from reopening in Washington, D.C. The Arizona Education Association, an affiliate of the NEA, did the same thing. The Chicago Teachers Union, also an affiliate of the AFT, claimed that the reopening of schools was “rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” That same union also told its members not to reveal if they had been vaccinated and were safe to return to the classroom. The president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers was caught walking his child into an in-person preschool while leading the charge to keep Berkeley’s public schools closed.
While these affiliates fought this fight at the local level, the national unions were pulling the levers in Washington. Emails obtained by Americans for Public Trust revealed that Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, made suggestions to Dr. Rochell Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about President Joe Biden’s plan to reopen schools, including recommendations to allow more teachers to continue working from home.
After all of this, Weingarten had the audacity to claim that the AFT “tried to reopen schools safely since April 2020” — a tale she has continued to spin repeatedly in recent months.
But none of Weingarten’s delusions can undo the reality: America’s most vulnerable children suffered while her union, and others, fought to keep schools closed.
Children from low-income families were “severely” impaired by school closures while children from wealthy families had “no significantly detrimental effects,” according to a study from Yale University. The damage done by school closures will follow students for the rest of their lives. The study estimated that freshmen from low-income families lost a quarter of their post-educational earning potential after a year of shutdowns — even if they are in school full time for the remainder of their high school careers.
The academic losses revealed in the study are not a surprise. Teachers themselves reported to the EdWeek Research Center that they spent less time on instruction overall during the shutdown. They spent more time reviewing old concepts and less time moving forward with new lessons. They estimated that children were spending roughly half as much time learning as they did when schools were open.
The loss of academic potential is awful on its own, but sadly, the damage didn’t stop there. Students have reported a host of other damaging effects from remote learning, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, weight gain, and, horrifically, suicide.
Parents have watched all of this unfold before their eyes. They’ve seen their children struggle with their schoolwork while navigating the numbing isolation of time away from friends.
The terrible part of these denied learning opportunities is that none of them were rooted in science. Medical professionals have known since the beginning that children were not getting seriously ill from COVID-19, nor were schools significant sources of COVID-19 transmissions. As far back as July 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that all school reopening plans “start with a goal of having students physically present in school.” Schools throughout Europe reopened, while ours remained shuttered. Private schools continued teaching safety, while public school students were forced to stay home.
But the damage has been done. Now, we must consider how we move forward, and that starts with recognizing that teachers union leaders only have one goal: helping themselves. The top officials at the United Auto Workers union don’t care about your car’s engine. Likewise, we shouldn’t assume the NEA or AFT’s first priority is the well-being of students. Don’t let them take credit for reopening schools now.
Charlyce Bozzello is the communications director at the Center for Union Facts.
