Malingering teachers unions continue to clamor for COVID-related school closures — in fact, more than 4,500 schools are closed currently — but this time, they’re not getting the same backup they got previously from the Biden administration.
Today, on Fox News Sunday, CDC director Rochelle Walensky evinced little sympathy for the school-closers.
“I want to remind people that in the fall of this year, we had a delta surge, and we were able to safely keep our children in school before we had pediatric vaccination,” said Walensky. “Fast-forward to now, and we have pediatric vaccination.”
Walensky is exactly right, and there isn’t even a serious response to her reasoning. When it comes down to it, the people pushing to turn COVID into a never-ending national slumber party evince a lack of belief in the efficacy of vaccination.
Given a less deadly variant of the virus and a more vaccinated population than at any point last year, school closures should be the last thing on anyone’s mind. What’s more, the risk of COVID to children, like the risk of its spread through children, has always been minuscule. The rare exceptions, children with immunocompromised conditions, are best protected by having the adults in their lives get vaccinated.
Democrats have little choice at this point but to leave the teachers unions behind. They are already hurtling toward an electoral disaster in the fall. The possible price of betraying their union allies just can’t compare to the rage that parents feel over scientifically unjustifiable school closures and other new proposed pandemic panic measures. As the American Federation for Children’s Corey DeAngelis told the Washington Examiner this weekend, “The government school unions have finally overplayed their hand and awakened a sleeping giant: parents.”
Indeed, NPR reported last month on a national drop in public school enrollment. Although the national numbers really need an update for this school year, a few of the public school districts had cumulative figures that must be devastating for the unions. Seattle Public Schools reported a 6.4% drop in enrollment since the pandemic began, and Rochester, New York, schools were down more than 10%. Charter school enrollment grew by 7% in fall 2020, as did parochial and private school enrollment.
Finally — and this is an undermentioned piece of the puzzle — the NPR piece suggests that many high schoolers (no indication of how many) are responding to the schools’ refusal to fulfill their role by dropping out and getting jobs. It’s a sensible thing to do at a time when you can make $16 an hour at your first job if you’re willing to work the overnight shift at Walmart. No one who can produce a clean urine sample has to work for anything less than $13 an hour. So, especially if you count yourself among the two-thirds of students who won’t get a college degree, why bother with useless distance classes when you can make some good money instead and perhaps get promoted to manager by the time your peers are graduating? You can always go back later and get your GED, and depending on where you work, your company might even help you pay for college classes later.
The coronavirus is doing for the nation what Hurricane Katrina once did to spur educational reform in New Orleans. In both cases, a great tragedy gave everyone a chance to reevaluate the way we’ve been living. The callous lack of concern and resistance to change by teachers unions is finally coming home to roost. Their refusal to work is so stark that even Democrats who have carefully avoided the truth about the unions as long as they could are finally forced to deal with the facts.
