Randi Weingarten heads one of the most powerful teachers unions. It seems like she is willing to start the conversation on how schools can be made less masking. At least, that’s the implication of a particular quote from a New York TimesAn opinion piece that made the rounds last night.
Weingarten is one the most prominent women in education. Her organization, the American Federation of Teachers, commands enough influence in Democratic politics that she and her organization guided the U.S. government’s talking points on how schools should handle the COVID-19 crisis after they were asked by the Biden administration for their assistance.
Her organization and she are also responsible at least in part for many schools closing down due to the pandemic. Your children’s lagging score, delayed education development and poor social and emotional development are all due to them. These are the main reasons why many children still have to wear masks at school.
They maintained that they were doing what was best for students, even though we knew (and suspected) going in that this would cause more harm than good.
Weingarten and her friends are, however, walking quite a bit of this back for some odd reason. It is possible that this may be due to a very good reason, which can be summarized in just two words.
Virginia’s education was a major factor in parents going to the polls. It worked against Terry McAuliffe, Democratic candidate. In fact, McAuliffe had Weingarten on the stage with him at his closing rally, an image that solidified his association with the unions that were deeply affecting parents’ concerns about public education. McAuliffe lost, and by far more than anyone would have suspected, and Glenn Youngkin benefitted from parents’ anger.
Weingarten appears to be reading the tea leaves (and by “tea leaves,” I mean flashing neon signs) regarding her role as well as teachers unions’ roles in what happened in Virginia, and she wants to start pulling back on the things they openly advocated for. You can read the NYT Above:
Randi Weingarten is ready to talk about ending school masking https://t.co/XE5maOF38L pic.twitter.com/A4sJ2LP2Xw
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) November 9, 2021
“The C.D.C. has been clear that everyone can unmask outside unless they’re in close contact with each other,” she said. “And I believe we need to give parents and teachers a road map to what it takes to start undoing the mitigations. We were able to reopen schools because vaccines for teachers worked. Maybe it’s vaccines for kids helping us get to unmasking of teachers and kids in schools.”
But, data is not available that proves schools were effective in preventing spread of COVID-19. Students in school have been shown to be at lower risk for COVID-19 transmission and infection. What’s more, from the school districts that remained partially or fully-opened last school year, we saw virtually no mass spreader events, suggesting that transmission in schools was never a major threat.
What we still don’t quite know is whether or not masks had a hand in that, but anecdotally, multiple teachers across the country can attest that if there’s one thing kids can’t or won’t do, it’s wearing masks properly.
Weingarten has indicated that she is willing to discuss the possibility of reversing mitigation efforts. It’s not because science has been proven to be accurate, but rather because Weingarten sees the root causes of anger among parents and how that affects the public schools and, in turn, her union. You can see what is ahead of you here because this was the cause for the partial turn. Democrats will try to implement new mitigation measures.
It’s not against COVID. But against parents backlash against the public school system.
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