Pennsylvania teachers union leaders have been pressuring government officials to keep schools closed during the pandemic, but they’re running into opposition from a growing coalition of parents who find that for most students, remote learning is not sufficient.
Eighty percent of parents in eastern Pennsylvania want schools reopened five days a week. Meanwhile, union leaders have been sending out mixed messages.
In January, Pennsylvania State Education Association press officer Chris Lilienthal claimed that the union “does not tell schools to have in-person, hybrid or remote learning — these are decisions that need to be made at the district level.” But in a November interview, the spokesman for the state’s largest public employee union stated that if the union hears “of districts that are disregarding the public health guidelines … we will use our voices.”
Pushing back on this opposition to in-person learning is Parents for In-Person Education, or PIPE, which was organized last fall when Montgomery County, suburban Philadelphia’s largest county, ordered the closure of all K-12 schools for in-person learning. PIPE activists are set to gather outside the offices of the union in Montgomeryville on Saturday.
PIPE has shared testimonials and resources highlighting the benefits of in-person instruction, along with the challenges associated with virtual learning. PIPE aligns these grassroots efforts with a political action committee, Keeping Kids in School, which supports school board candidates who back full-time, in-person education and places blame for school closures on the union. PIPE’s outreach joins a larger school choice movement in Pennsylvania.
In nearby Chester County, for example, Beth Ann Rosica, a mother of two children, is one of several parents who organized a group called West Chester Families for Brick and Mortar. Rosica is particularly critical of the “attestation process,” a burdensome compliance mandate, part of the governor’s COVID-19 guidance, that school administrators require for in-person learning. “What the governor has done is to shift the risk, obligation, and responsibility back to the school districts and school boards,” she said. “By signing the attestation forms, the school districts are saying they are in complete compliance with the required mitigation efforts and if they aren’t, they must operate remotely. School boards are just afraid to fully reopen for in-person instruction.”
Marc LeBlond, a senior policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank based in Harrisburg, sees an opening for parents to advance school choice initiatives.
“The unions have used the pandemic as an excuse to create leverage for their own ends, with kids as bargaining chips,” he said.
As LeBlond noted, distance learning has worked well for some families, but it has proven disastrous for others. Each family, though, must have the choice to determine the best academic course for its unique situation. As LeBlond put it, “If there’s a silver lining to the pandemic, it’s that top-down solutions are yesterday’s news.” He believes state leaders have an urgent, if not moral, obligation to Pennsylvania’s children. “Many of them haven’t had their educational needs met for the better part of a year. For them, immediate relief isn’t soon enough.”
As recently as November, state leaders including Gov. Tom Wolf expressed support for in-person learning. In fact, Wolf joined governors from other northeastern states to issue a statement expressing support for in-person learning “as the best possible scenario for children, especially those with special needs from low-income families.” Wolf’s support, though, conflicted with Pennsylvania’s Department of Education, which issued guidance making it difficult for school districts to reopen fully. This also followed Wolf’s previous order to close all private and public schools for the duration of the 2019–2020 school year.
What accounts for the separation between Wolf’s stated support for in-person learning and the policies his administration has enforced?
LeBlond points to a letter the association sent last summer urging Wolf to refrain from sending teachers back into the classroom. Since 2010, the association’s political action committee has sent about $2.4 million to Wolf, and in 2018, the organization contributed more than $1.5 million to his successful reelection campaign.
Rosica, who holds a doctorate in education, anticipates that parents will have greater leverage with special interests if they continue to organize. As it stands, the West Chester Families for Brick and Mortar has almost 1,000 members, according to the group’s Facebook page. It is aligned with other suburban Philadelphia districts, including Downingtown Area, Garnet Valley Area, and Great Valley. Its goal, Rosica said, is to organize into a statewide group called Pennsylvania Achievement Partnership, which could empower parents and individual teachers to have greater input into policy. “So many teachers I talk to want kids back in the classroom five days a week,” she said. “But the union is not pushing that agenda. Clearly, the union is not representing its constituents.”
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., who writes for several national publications.
