By Fresh off the nation’s “report card” showing that American schools were devastated by school closures and lockdowns promoted by teacher unions, President Biden has found a new aspect of American life for Randi Weingarten to wreck. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently announced that the leader of the American Federation of Teachers Union will be one of the newest members of a DHS academic council.
Weingarten has spent much of the past year running away from her actions during the pandemic, and it’s no surprise why. Teacher union insistence that schools remain closed in 2020 has set an entire generation of students back.
“National test scores plummeted for 13-year-olds, according to new data that shows the single largest drop in math in 50 years and no signs of academic recovery following the disruptions of the pandemic, The Washington Post writes.
Student scores plunged nine points in math and four points in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often regarded as the nation’s report card. The release Wednesday reflected testing in fall 2022, comparing it to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic began.
‘These results show that there are troubling gaps in the basic skills of these students,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers the tests. The new data, she said, “reinforces the fact that recovery is going to take some time.’
The average math score is now the same as it was in 1990, while the average reading score is the same as it was in 2004.”
Only Biden could look at those results and think that Weingarten should play a role in national defense.
Fox News reported, “Mayorkas announced that Weingarten will be one of 20 new members on the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. According to a press release, the council was formed last year and “will provide strategic and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more.”
“Leaders of our academic institutions and campus life have a great deal to offer in helping us counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “The Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council’s insights into strategic research, innovation, career development, and partnership opportunities for the Department will support our mission to safeguard the American people, and help our country think through and prepare for whatever threats lie ahead.
“I am grateful to each of the twenty Council members I am appointing today for their willingness to serve, and I look forward to receiving their guidance and recommendations,” he said.
Weingarten became infamous during pandemic as one of the loudest proponents for keeping schools closed. “The AFT,” remarked The National Review, “the nation’s second-largest largest teachers’ union, pushed the CDC to delay opening schools well after most other developed nations has returned children to the classroom, emails obtained by Americans for Public Trust revealed.
In the fall of 2020, Weingarten denounced calls to reopen schools as “reckless, callous, cruel.” An AFT affiliate in Chicago similarly condemned then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2022, who called her efforts to reopen school “rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.”
Weingarten went so far as to support suing states to keep kids out of school. “In July 2020, the Florida Education Association filed a lawsuit ‘with the support of national affiliates the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association—against Gov. Ron DeSantis, Commissioner Richard Corcoran, the Florida Department of Education, the Florida State Board of Education and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez to safeguard the health and welfare of public school students, educators and the community at large. The lawsuit intends to stop the reckless and unsafe reopening of public school campuses as coronavirus infections surge statewide.’
The union said, ‘Gov. DeSantis needs a reality check, and we are attempting to povide one,’ said FEA President Fedrick Ingram. ‘The governor needs to accept the reality of the situation here in Florida, where the virus is surging out of control. He needs to accept the evolving science. It now appears that kids 10 and older may pass along the virus as easily as adults. Everyone wants schools to reopen, but we don’t want to begin in-person teaching, face an explosion of cases and sickness, then be forced to return to distance learning. Florida’s Constitution demands that public schools be safe. Teachers and parents want our schools to meet that basic standard.’”
Representative Ben Cline (R., Va.) condemned the announcement. “Randi Weingarten chose appeasing teacher unions over getting students back in the classroom during the pandemic. Now, math and reading scores for the Nation’s 13-year-olds are at the worst decline in decades.”
“Why is DHS rewarding bad policy?” the Freedom Caucus member wrote on Twitter.
Randi Weingarten chose appeasing teacher unions over getting students back in the classroom during the pandemic.
Now, math and reading scores for the Nation’s 13-year-olds are at the worst decline in decades.
Why is DHS rewarding bad policy? https://t.co/Rg0IBd0mgA
— Congressman Ben Cline (@RepBenCline) June 21, 2023
In 2022, Weingarten, probably following China’s lead, proposed that masks should only come off of schoolchildren until there was zero transmission in schools.
The National Review continued by showing how clueless the union chief was regarding the results of her actions and the efficacy of her proposals. “Weingarten was brought before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in late April, to address the union’s role in delaying the reopening of schools. House Republicans zeroed in on the AFT’s lack of qualification to be involved in public-health discussions with the CDC.
‘Did your scientific experts present to you, as of June of 2020, among 1.8 million children in this age group, do you know how many died from Covid?’ Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R., Iowa) asked the union boss.
‘I don’t have that number in my head,” Weingarten replied, to which the Iowa representative answered her own question saying the number was ‘zero.’
Come to think of it; maybe she’ll fit right in with Mayorkas.
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