We recently received additional confirmation that the queen of school closures, union boss Randi Weingarten, exerted undue political influence over the Biden administration's policies on COVID and schools. In pursuit of partisan advantage and myopic self-interest, Weingarten was allowed to manipulate the "Science" in such a way as to be extremely beneficial to her union's coffers and her own power, while inflicting terrible, long-lasting, totally unnecessary and anti-data harm on millions of children. The reward for these disgraceful actions has been a deeper embrace by the White House, where she is an honored guest, entrusted with even more influence and power. The priorities of this alliance are deeply destructive to the well-being and education of American kids.
Weingarten lies, demagogues and distorts with such frequency that correcting her messy trail of mischaracterizations and propaganda would be a full-time job. In a recent tweet, she waded back into the left-wing culture wars against children, purporting to once again demonstrate that it's conservatives who are the overreaching aggressors. While some on the Right do sometimes pick bad fights, or make problematic decisions, the bulk of cultural skirmishes roiling our society these days -- especially involving schools -- originate on the Left, then conservatives are assailed for noticing and objecting. And quite a few of the prominent talking points adopted by the Democrats and the media wither or weaken under even cursory scrutiny. For instance, here's Weingarten sounding the alarm that a teacher was fired for reading from Anne Frank's diary. Look at this authoritarian book banners in action, she demands. It "speaks for itself!!!" Her misinformation:
Texas teacher fired for reading Diary of Anne Frank to class-THIS Speaks for itself!!! https://t.co/fUXiEQcmv9
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓 (@rweingarten) September 20, 2023
The real story, per a Twitter 'Community Notes' crowd-sourced fact check:
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) September 20, 2023
It wasn't actually the Diary of Anne Frank, the passage in question was sexual in nature and read aloud by middle schoolers who were then encouraged to discuss the sexual content. I'm not sure if that warranted a firing (I'd want more context), but it's a far cry from an educator informing her class about the Holocaust and getting canned for the sin of acknowledging history, which is how Weingarten presented it. She is consistently dishonest. She got absolutely bulldozed in the replies and comments for her mendacity, which likely explains why she so often blocks replies to her tweets -- bullying and lying while deploying both the identity politics and victimhood cards:
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hey Randi you forgot to close your replies on this garbage post. you are a liar and should delete your account. pic.twitter.com/9f3i0zljx4
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) September 20, 2023
I'd guess she wouldn't want anyone to respond to any of her social media screeds with this recent Wall Street Journal editorial detailing what she's wrought, not that she'd read it or care. But this wreckage is, disproportionately, her handiwork:
By now a mountain of evidence shows that Covid school closures were a serious error that caused K-12 learning loss, but according to a report published Wednesday, that’s only the beginning. “Three years after the start of the pandemic,” it says, “Covid-19 is continuing to derail learning, but in more insidious and hidden ways.” The report is the latest from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, or CRPE, which is warning this time about the poor state of student well-being. “More than 8 in 10 public schools reported stunted behavioral and social-emotional development in their students because of the Covid-19 pandemic,” it says, citing federal survey data. Nearly half of schools “reported an increase in threats of physical attacks among students.” The rate of playing hooky is way up: “16 million students were chronically absent (i.e., missed more than 10% of school days) during the 2021-22 school year, twice as many as in previous years.”
The share of students who reported missing five or more days in a month doubled to 10% between 2020 and 2023. “Students in schools that closed the longest were more likely to disengage from school, to drop out or stop attending school,” CRPE says. Even students who have succeeded academically and gone to college weren’t unaffected. “The enforced isolation of the pandemic has delayed developmental milestones for many of our traditional-aged students, affecting their social development, emotional health, and cognitive readiness” ... A CRPE report this summer detailed pandemic “teaching loss,” quoting school leaders on the erosion of classroom expectations and rigor. These days even teachers union chief Randi Weingarten pretends she was frantically trying to reopen schools all along. Parents and students will remember, though, as they spend years trying to dig themselves out of a hole.
Weingarten and her ilk made clear that they viewed in-person school instruction as non-essential for a year-and-a-half. A lot of young people noticed. The results are disastrous. Since we opened this post with a comment about the culture wars, I'll leave you with one of the Left's corporate aggressors signaling a step back from divisive engagement:
Disney CEO says company will 'quiet the noise' in culture wars https://t.co/7diCchpxVE
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 20, 2023
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