Global Courant 2023-04-27 17:00:02
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If thugs hurt your child, you would do almost anything to stop them. The harm done by the teachers’ unions is legalized violence. Here’s what you can do.
Closing schools in the spring of 2020 when no one understood COVID was understandable. But when the science showed a negligible risk for students to return to the classroom, extending closures became child abuse. But on orders from the Biden White House, the CDC followed the dictates of the unions rather than the science.
School closures led to severe learning loss, leaving many children stranded for years, possibly for the rest of their lives. “This may become a real problem for this generation,” warns Oxford University researcher Bastian Betthauser. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company calls the impact on students’ basic skills “grim.” According to a CDC survey, a whopping 37 percent of high school students reported having mental health problems during the lockdowns.
Listen up, parents. To protect your children from the unions, you must wage political war state by state.
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Action is urgently needed. Since 2008, public school learning progress has stagnated and American children are lagging behind their peers in other countries. The COVID lockdowns have dealt a devastating blow, but schools were in crisis long before that.
Laws in 38 states guarantee collective bargaining not just over pay, but often over every aspect of the school day, even the curriculum. Unions use these powers to block school reform, oppose standardized testing, merit pay and teacher accountability. And to stuff the curriculum with political indoctrination — what the American Federation of Teachers calls “social justice.”
The unions also buy outright political influence. The National Education Association and the AFT — the country’s two largest teachers’ unions — are among the largest donors to politicians, and at least 94 percent of that money goes to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. No wonder the Biden White House ordered the CDC to crouch for Randi Weingarten and the teachers unions.
It’s a racket, explains Philip Howard, author of “Not Accountable,” a compelling account of public unions. They back the Democrats big time, and in return they get what they want at the negotiating table.
The good news is that reformers in red and purple states are pushing for that to change. Five states prohibit unions from deducting dues from teachers’ salaries, making it more difficult to raise millions for political influence.
Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders are also working to curb unions from dictating curriculums, such as teaching elementary school kids gender theory instead of math and read.
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Unfortunately, deep blue states like Illinois and New York are unionized. That explains the otherwise inexplicably destructive policies of the New York State Department of Education. New York is making sure that tested kids’ abysmal reading and math scores just after lockdowns ended were the baseline or “the new normal” against which prospective students will be measured. That redefines “skill” to the bone. A teacher’s students have to do as well as children who were locked up at home without any class time.
In late 2022, Weingarten admitted lockdowns were a mistake and asked for “pandemic amnesty”. No way she deserves that. Everyone makes mistakes, but Weingarten lied to help her union members at the expense of the children.
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And she still does. She supports a bill introduced by New York Rep. and former teacher union member Jamaal Bowman, to abolish federally mandated standardized testing. She argues that it is best for children not to be tested. Ridiculous.
Getting rid of tests is a trick to cover up failing teachers and schools. Parents, join the fight to limit union power and put children first.
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Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chair of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
