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Teachers’ unions rejoiced this week when Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris introduced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her working mate, describing the left-wing ticket as a significant win for public educators.
But critics are warning that Harris’ choice of Walz, a former academics’ union member who’s against what he has described as the college alternative “agenda,” over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a school-choice advocate, ought to increase alarm bells for fogeys and kids within the public schooling system. The academics’ union pushed arduous to extend college closures in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic — many districts remained shuttered for over a yr.
“Anyone who makes Randi this excited is a 5-alarm fire for parents and students,” former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stated Tuesday after academics’ union boss Randi Weingarten posted a video of herself gushing over the Walz decide.
“We’re so excited,” Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), stated of Walz. “We have known him for years as a social studies teacher, as a vet, as a union member, as a congressman, as a governor, he cares about working people. We’ve seen it.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris is welcomed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz earlier than she delivers remarks at a marketing campaign occasion in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“A teacher and a unionist. Enough said,” wrote the Chicago Teachers Union, which is at present being sued by dad and mom for its dealing with of the pandemic.
National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle additionally praised Walz as an “exceptional choice.”
The AFT was the primary labor union to formally endorse Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Biden was pushed out of the race by his personal occasion. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City and the Washington Teachers’ Union additionally stated they had been “proud” to endorse Harris.
After Biden’s withdrawal final month, Harris gave a speech on the AFT slamming Republicans as desirous to “ban books.”
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The outpouring of assist from academics’ unions has prompted renewed scrutiny of their widespread affect on public college districts in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the identical unions endorsing the Harris-Walz ticket lobbied college districts as late as 2022 to maintain children and academics out of the classroom.
When faculties in pink states like Florida started to reopen within the fall of 2020, Weingarten referred to as these efforts “reckless, callous, cruel.” The Chicago Teachers Union echoed the sentiment on the time, claiming the push was “rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.”
When President Biden entered the White House in January 2021, the AFT and NEA labored carefully with then-White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and previous analyses by Fox News Digital revealed the 2 unions performed a major position in shaping nationwide tips.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn in earlier than testifying earlier than the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 3. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Weingarten signaled the potential for future college lockdowns as late as January 2022, writing, “There are very real logistical decisions schools are making. We know kids do better in person, but the spike is real. We need adequate staff & the safety measures in place including testing, masking, ventilation. There is a lot of stress.”
That similar month, the AFT-affiliated Chicago Teachers Union led a five-day strike over COVID-19 measures that saved children out of college even longer, prompting an ongoing class motion lawsuit claiming college students had been robbed of $213.4 million price of studying time.
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, reacts in entrance of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 26. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
The energy of academics’ unions in state and native politics is simple. The NEA has donated greater than $21.7 million virtually solely to Democratic candidates and liberal teams within the 2024 election cycle, and the AFT has donated greater than $3.8 million to Democratic candidates and liberal teams this cycle, in accordance with OpenSecrets.org.
A working paper first launched in October 2020, which examined greater than 10,000 college districts throughout the nation and their COVID-19 reopening plans, discovered that partisan politics and academics’ union energy in a selected space had extra affect on faculties reopening than native well being guidances.
Similarly, a examine launched in March 2021 by Corey A. DeAngelis and Christos Makridis examined 835 public college districts throughout the nation and located that faculty districts in places with stronger academics’ unions had been much less more likely to reopen in particular person, and that no proof confirmed that COVID-19 threat correlated with these college reopening selections.
More lately, The New York Times conceded in a March report that “remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic.”
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Fox News Digital requested AFT to element its position within the public college closures and whether or not the lockdowns had been a mistake.
“It’s only weirdos like Fox News who think this lol — mainstream outlets know that the AFT fought to safely reopen schools from April 2020 on,” an AFT spokesperson responded.
The state maybe most affected by the facility of academics’ unions was California, which was the final within the nation to reopen faculties for in-person studying. Over the course of the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to make use of his emergency powers to compel faculties to reopen amid intense strain from academics’ unions. Even when eating places and bars had been permitted to reopen, many college districts within the state remained closed, particularly these with highly effective academics’ unions like these in San Francisco and Los Angeles, that are each AFT associates.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigns for President Biden at a Democratic Party occasion in South Haven, Michigan, on July 4. (Chris duMond/Shutterstock)
Republicans and fogeys’ teams angered over the lockdowns launched a recall effort in opposition to Newsom that failed in September 2021. The NEA-affiliated California Teachers Association, the state’s largest academics’ union, donated $1.8 million to cease the recall.
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Data over time has proven that faculty closures within the U.S. have had a devastating impression on kids’s psychological well being, improvement and future earnings potential.
A examine launched in June 2022 by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that 70% of U.S. public faculties have reported a rise in college students looking for psychological well being providers for the reason that begin of the pandemic. A examine launched about the identical time by the American Enterprise Institute additionally discovered that almost 1.3 million college students had left public faculties for the reason that pandemic started, and faculties that stayed distant longer noticed much more college students go away.
In December 2023, the Programme for International Student Assessment launched a report that discovered take a look at scores for 15-year-olds within the U.S. had been down 13 factors in comparison with 2018.
The college closures might additionally price this technology of scholars $21 trillion in earnings over their lifetimes, in accordance with a June 2022 joint publication by the World Bank, UNICEF, FCDO, USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UNESCO.
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Fox News Digital requested the Harris-Walz marketing campaign for its official place on college alternative, whether or not the candidates supported the closures and whether or not it might declare college lockdowns a factor of the previous, however didn’t obtain a response.
The NEA didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark for functions of this story.
