American Federation of Teachers (ATF) President Randi Weingarten, a leading force in keeping schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Thursday that her opposition to reopening schools is a “Republican talking point.”
Prolonged school closures and remote learning had a detrimental impact on students’ skills in core subjects, prompting President Donald Trump’s plan to return education to the states by making major changes to the Department of Education (DOE). Weingarten claimed on “CNN News Central” that Republicans are attempting to mislead the public on her role in school closures, claiming that she fought to reopen school as early as April 2020.
“COVID was a terrible time for us and as you know, because I was on our show a lot and other shows, I wanted schools to be reopened as early as April 2020, the issue was the fear and the issue was the safety issues,” Weingarten said. “COVID has really hurt in so many ways. But this has been a Republican talking point for a long time and in fact, during in the last couple of years, it was routinely put up in the Congress and 60 Republicans voted against it the last time it was put up. The real issue is how do we make sure that kids have the funding that they need and make sure that every single kid has a safe and welcoming environment and is one that is engaging and relevant.”
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Weingarten appeared to be backtracking on her previous statements regarding school closures during the pandemic. She openly criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2021 for announcing it was safe for children to return to in-person learning, despite a CDC study from Jan. 2021 finding that opening schools did not drive COVID transmission.
In April 2020, Weingarten’s union issued a plan for reopening schools that she said was “based on science and public health protocols.” However, the plans for reopening schools included strict and somewhat ambiguous conditions, such as the infection rate being “very low” and additional funding for more personnel to reduce size classes.
The ATF also supported a lawsuit filed by a Florida teachers union against DeSantis as he worked to reopen schools in June 2020. Weingarten further supported a teachers strike in Chicago after the CDC announced children could return to schools in Jan. 2021.
While pushing for the closures, Weingarten raked in $449,562 during the 2021-2022 school year, which was seven times more than the average salary for a teacher at the time.
Weingarten’s union also spent $35.7 million of members’ dues on left-wing politics in the 2021-2022 fiscal year, including thousands of dollars that were sent to organizations such as Media Matters for America and Friends for Kathy Hochul, the Democratic New York governor’s campaign.
Students continue to struggle from the effects of remote learning, with one analysis from The New York Times in March 2024 finding that elementary school students fell behind in math by over half-a-year and also struggled in reading and science. School closure rates and results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that students in remote learning settings were worse off on their test scores than those who were granted in-person learning.
The Nation’s Report Card found in January that one-third of eighth graders failed to reach the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s (NAEP) reading assessment benchmark in 2024, the largest percentage ever recorded, while 40% of fourth grade students tested below the NAEP’s reading proficiency.
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