Randi Weingarten, who heads the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), was one of the major proponents of locking down schools and pushing vaccine mandates for school-age children. She recently posted a tweet admitting that the “solutions” she and her colleagues pushed on the rest of the populace were ineffectual. She is not the only one. But now that floodgates have started to open, will there ever be an effective accounting of poor decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Randi Weingarten ‘Fesses Up
Weingarten tweeted: “What we have seen in public education is that technology can’t replace teachers. Remote education didn’t work, in part because you have to have relationships. You have to build trust.” Critics jumped on Weingarten’s acknowledgment, pointing out that she is likely hoping people will forget that she was one of several who fought tooth and nail to keep schools closed despite evidence showing this move to be unnecessary and even harmful to students.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded by saying, “living rooms became ‘classrooms’ during the pandemic” because of Weingarten. Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade reminded users that folks like Weingarten “called Republicans murderers for saying this in 2021.”
Even more ironic about Weingarten’s sudden about-face is that last September, she tried to pin the school lockdowns on former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The AFT leader wrote an op-ed taking issue with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which had criticized her for the policies she supported. “No teacher I know enjoyed remote and hybrid learning—which, pre-pandemic, was championed by Betsy DeVos,” Weingarten wrote. “Not one teacher relished teaching art class via Zoom to 40 pupils, 20 of them in a classroom and 20 at home.
“While former President Donald Trump and his education secretary, Ms. DeVos, ranted and raved, their successors put the safety measures in place to get reopening done,” she added.
Will America Forget?
Weingarten appears to be banking on the possibility that America will forget that she and her comrades were the primary motivators behind the efforts to lock down schools and force children to learn from home. The results were devastating for students, most of whom suffered academically from the COVID restrictions on their learning. The Brookings Institute noted:
“Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina — math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees.”
Of course, people questioning the efficacy of school lockdowns were not surprised by these dismal academic outcomes. But those who spoke out against them were laughed at, shouted down, and even censored on Big Tech platforms. Those who championed these measures seemed desperate to make sure people did not question the narrative. In the end, it was the children who suffered the most.
Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, a parental rights advocacy group, told Liberty Nation:
“Randi Weingarten is one of the people most responsible for remote schooling lasting so long in many of the nation’s largest school districts. She made sure teachers got priority for the vaccine and then still held children hostage in order to extort more federal money for schools. She lied about that money being necessary to reopen and she’s lying now when she claims she worked hard to reopen schools. Her claims would be laughable if they weren’t in the context of an unprecedented educational catastrophe.”
High-profile figures such as Randi Weingarten now seem to realize they were on the wrong side of the lockdown issue. But instead of acknowledging their error, they are attempting to gaslight the American public into believing they did not see what they clearly saw over the past three years.
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