Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz acknowledged on “The Chuck ToddCast” Monday that the teachers union played a role in his party not opposing school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prolonged school closures and remote education during the pandemic had harmful effects on students’ aptitude in crucial subjects like math and English. Moskowitz said on the podcast that he told his colleagues to support reopening schools, but they did not listen because of the teachers union and a need to resist Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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“I was telling my Democratic colleagues like, ‘Guys, read the data.’ Like I would sit at a conference table with the governor,” Moskowitz told host Chuck Todd. “We’d be reading the data from Denmark and Germany and Europe because they were ahead of us. And it was clear it wasn’t spreading in the schools.”
“I said to my Democratic colleagues, I’m like, ‘When we open schools, it’s going to be very popular. When you guys come out and tell parents you want to keep their kids in the house for another year, I’m telling you this is where this is going.’ And none of my colleagues wanted to hear it, Chuck,” he continued.
Todd asked if their refusal to listen was due to “the power of the teachers union.”
“It’s part teachers union,” Moskowitz said.
“Part also, we were at a point of polarization that if DeSantis wanted to open schools then I had to be against it … things had become so toxic at that point,” he added.
DeSantis was a strong critic of lockdowns, school closures and mask mandates, especially in the classroom. He started to reopen Florida in early May 2020, making it one of the first states to curtail COVID-19 restrictions.
American Federation of Teachers (ATF) President Randi Weingarten warned in July 2020 that ATF leadership would back “safety strikes” if the health measures they wanted were not imposed, NPR reported. She also claimed in July 2021 that DeSantis’ insistence on reopening schools would kill “millions” of people.
Moskowitz also warned on “The Chuck ToddCast” Monday that his state is likely to stay Republican for the foreseeable future, arguing the COVID-19 pandemic was a turning point for the parties.
“Now there are 1.2 million more registered Republicans. It’s starting to get to a point that it’s not recoverable, at least not in the short term,” he told Todd. “But I think COVID was a big piece of it … We’re 35 years into Republican rule. We may be here for another 70.”
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