CNN contributor blasts teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten over COVID school closures: 'I hear no remorse'



CNN has long been a refuge for Democrats and their allies; however, this week, it afforded no shelter to the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

AFT president Randi Weingarten, deemed the "most dangerous person in the world" by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appeared on a "CNN Tonight" panel discussion Thursday evening after testifying the previous day before House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

While Weingarten has previously made headlines for opposing parental rights, spreading falsehoods about Republicans, and flouting the same rules she expected others to follow, the union boss is presently battling accusations that she colluded with the Biden administration to shutter schools, thereby adversely impacting children nationwide.

CNN political commentator Scott Jennings, who previously worked in the Bush administration, was also on the panel and seized upon the opportunity to unload on Weingarten.

"Speaking on behalf of millions of American parents — I have four at home, I had to teach them at home, my wife had to teach them at home — I am stunned at what you have said this week about your claiming to have wanted to reopen schools," said Jennings.

"I think you’ll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school closures," continued the CNN commentator. "There are numerous statements you made over the summer of ’20 scaring people to death about the possibility of opening schools."

The New York Times reported that Weingarten exploited the pandemic to "push for broader policy changes that [the AFT] had long favored."

For instance, the AFT held schools for ransom lest they receive "personal protective equipment, new cleaning and sanitization regimens in school buildings, a temporary suspension of formal teacher performance evaluations, a limit on student testing, a cancellation of student-loan debt and a $750 billion federal aid package to help schools prepare to reopen safely and facilitate 'a real recovery for all our communities.'"

Jennings added, "And I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that’s been done to these ki — I have two kids with learning differences. Do you know how hard it is for them to learn at home, and not in a classroom that was designed for them? And for you to sit in front of Congress and the American people and say, 'What? I wanted to open them the whole time.' I am shocked, I am stunned. I am stunned. And there are millions of parents who feel the exact same way."

Weingarten responded, "I knew and understood the importance of reopening the schools and the importance of making sure that people were safe. And poll after poll that we did of parents, and I spent a lot of time with parents, said that they basically understood and supported that we needed to do both."

When the union boss invoked Jennings' kids, he immediately cut her off.

"You think parents wanted to keep the kids? You think parents supported you in keeping kids? Why did we fail? How did Europe and the rest of the civilized world get this right and we failed?" Jennings asked.

\u201cWatch Scott Jennings calling Randi Weingarten on her lies.\u201d
— I Meme Therefore I Am \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@I Meme Therefore I Am \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1682690890

Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic similarly shredded Weingarten over her culpability in possibly stunting a generation of American kids, reported National Review.

"The effect on children has been vast and to have no remorse on closing schools and keeping them closed for the length of time is unconscionable," said Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), herself a medical doctor and former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Miller-Meeks grilled Weingarten over the scientific data, underscoring how at the time decisions were being made about whether to keep schools open or close them, zero children in the relevant age groups at died from COVID.

"The fact is schools were relatively safe places for both students and educators. These are scientific questions that a scientific organization should be able to study and answer. The AFT is not a scientific organization," said Miller-Meeks. "The AFT was out of its league in this regard."

TheBlaze previously reported that the AFT leaned on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get its way in terms of parameterizing the national school reopening scheme and dictated select language in the reopening guidance.

During the pandemic, the AFT and other teachers' unions exerted their influence to shut down schools. The primary reason cited for this unprecedented move was the need to protect teachers' and students' health — to stop the spread of the virus.

These shutdowns have been reported to have led to significant spikes in mental illness, suicide, and obesity and the diminution of students' immune systems.

In addition to psychological and physiological impacts, school closures have also been linked to a drastic drop in academic ability of American children nationwide.

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It’s Only A Matter Of Time Before The CDC Shuts Down Your Child’s School

Your child's school will inevitably get shut down by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The question is how long will it take?

Teachers Union Head Calls For Vaccine Mandates And Lessons On Jan. 6 ‘Insurrection’

Randi Weingarten said opening schools is conditional on vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 mitigation strategies that she says "need to be negotiated."

California Teachers Now Demanding Free Childcare To Go To Work

California's largest teachers union is demanding that the Los Angeles Unified School District grant educators subsidized child care before they resume in-person teaching.

Parents sue Los Angeles teachers union and school district for holding kids 'hostage' to push liberal agenda



Four families filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and a powerful Los Angeles teachers union over the damage being done to their students by the district's reluctance to reopen schools.

The lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court claims that the students have suffered academically and emotionally over the decision to keep schools closed.

The complaint names the LAUSD, the United Teachers Los Angeles union, and the organization's president Cecily Myart-Cruz, as defendants.

The attorney for the plaintiffs, Timothy Snowball, accused the union of holding kids hostage in order to push for their political agenda unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic.

"UTLA used the tragedy of COVID-19 as an excuse to extract concessions based on its preferred personal and ideological policies by holding the education and future of LAUSD's children hostage," the lawsuit reads.

"UTLA was willing for teachers to remain out of the classroom, and children, including Plaintiffs, to suffer the mental, social, and academic consequences," the lawsuit continued.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are working pro bono and are associated with the Freedom Foundation.

According to an agreement reached with the union, LAUSD students are scheduled to return to in-classroom instruction within a couple of weeks. However, students will return based on a hybrid model that limits the days and hours of instruction. Some parents have complained that the hybrid model isn't good enough after a year of distance learning.

The families in the complaint are anonymous and identified only by initials.

One family says that their student was socially well-adjusted before distance learning but has since become depressed, addicted to video games and expressed suicidal thoughts.

Another family says their autistic 11-year-old has struggled to pay attention with distance learning and has gained 30 pounds over the lack of exercise.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages for an amount equal to the per-student budget at the school.

California was the first to issue a statewide lockdown order in March 2020 after the first surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Other states soon followed suit.

Here's more about the battle to reopen schools:

UTLA rejects sending teachers back to in-person learning unless union's demands are metwww.youtube.com

Horowitz: A freedom spring after the dark winter of tyranny?



It's not just when you're having fun that time flies. I can't believe it's nearly 11 months since my first article noting that locking down and masking children is a crime against humanity divorced from all science. Yet here we are almost a year later, entering a new spring season, with children being forced to mask in school (assuming they are even in school) and being wrongly treated as vectors of spread rather than the future of our country. The consequences are unfathomable and will plague us for years to come.

Last week, CBC News reported that McMaster Children's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, saw a 90% increase in children admitted for eating disorders, along with a tripling of children patients admitted after suicide attempts over a four-month period.

The culprit? A "lack of social interaction, increased conflict at home, and the inability to rely on friends as main contributors."

As a result, the hospital has also seen double the admissions for drug-related psychosis.

Sadly, there is nothing unique to Canada. It's occurring everywhere in the world where children were shut out of school and where adults selfishly projected their own fears upon children. In places like Los Alamos, New Mexico, emergency responders saw a tripling of suicides during the first eight months of the lockdowns. In August, the CDC reported that 25% of young adults considered suicide, yet the agency has failed to fundamentally change its policies in the ensuing months.

It didn't have to be this way. Even if one agreed with the unprecedented masking and social isolation of adults, the science was clear from day one that children were less at risk either to get sick from or to spread the virus than from typical seasonal pathogens. We could have left children alone to live much of their normal lives and routines.

Ironically, in September 2019, just months before the coronavirus outbreak became apparent in Wuhan, Johns Hopkins wrote a paper for the World Health Organization gaming out "Preparedness for a High-Impact Respiratory Pathogen Pandemic." Hopkins, which became a leading voice for lockdowns just a few months later, warned about the severe consequences of "non-pharmaceutical interventions" (NPIs).

"During an emergency, it should be expected that implementation of some NPIs, such as travel restrictions and quarantine, might be pursued for social or political purposes by political leaders, rather than pursued because of public health evidence," warned the team from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "WHO should rapidly and clearly articulate its opposition to inappropriate NPIs, especially when they threaten public health response activities or pose increased risks to the health of the public."

Well, several months later, those political NPIs are exactly what Hopkins recommended. Officials destroyed the health of a generation of children, all for politics, when they knew from day one that this virus was not a danger to children. The evidence from day one showed lockdowns of children would be all pain and no gain, yet Hopkins refused to heed its own advice from September 2019.

"It is necessary to further study the effectiveness of NPIs in a variety of contexts to ensure that they are employed properly with a strong evidence base, and that the value of taking any specific NPI intervention in a particular pandemic setting is not outweighed by the potential harm," warned the authors, prophetically. "It is important to communicate to political leaders the absence of evidence surrounding many NPI interventions and the adverse consequences that may follow them."

To this day, we never hear a word from people like Anthony Fauci or CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about the negative consequences of COVID cult-like living on children or anyone else. In fact, this is not even a case of the consequences outweighing the benefits, because there are zero benefits to lockdown. We didn't need 12 months of evidence after lockdowns were implemented to predict they'd fail. The same Hopkins paper predicted this just months before. Here is the money quote:

In the context of a high-impact respiratory pathogen, quarantine may be the least likely NPI to be effective in controlling the spread due to high transmissibility. To implement effective quarantine measures, it would need to be possible to accurately evaluate an individual's exposure, which would be difficult to do for a respiratory pathogen because of the ease of widespread transmission from infected individuals. Quarantine measures will be least effective for pathogens that are highly transmissible, have short incubation periods, and spread through true airborne mechanisms, as opposed to droplets.

It was known from day one that this virus was highly transmissible like a cold and that there was no way we could stop the spread of it as we could of Ebola. Shortly afterward, it became apparent that this virus is transmitted through aerosols, not through droplets, which is why it spread like wildfire even after all the measures were strictly adhered to. It's also why masks became useless.

If one had to list the pros of masking and isolation on one side of a paper, and the short and long-term harms on the other side, the pro side would be blank and the con side would not have enough room to enumerate all of the ways we are destroying the social, mental, emotional, physical, developmental, and educational health of our kids.

Now, as more kids finally return to school, the same people who destroyed their lives for a year are now suggesting that they should strictly wear masks and be yelled at all day for not wearing them properly. "Oh, it's just a mask, what's the harm?" they ask. Yet anyone with a modicum of common sense understands that a mask, aside from the physical harms, serves as a constant reminder for children to needlessly fear this virus and one another. Would we ever treat our pets this way?

Thankfully, the public is finally starting to fight back. People took to the streets to demonstrate in cities throughout the world, including in nearly every country in Europe. Police in Austria even joined in with the protesters. The question for us is whether Americans will lead the freedom spring marches or follow far behind Europe.

New CDC guidelines say schoolchildren can sit 3 feet apart in class



The argument to fully reopen schools for in-person learning was strengthened Friday by new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that clarify it is safe for schoolchildren to sit just three feet apart in the classroom, provided they wear masks. However, the CDC still recommends six-foot social distancing at sporting events, assemblies, lunch, and choir practice, and of course for adults.

The revised recommendations come following a new study that suggested three feet of social distancing is just as safe as six feet if everyone wears a mask. Under the old six-foot recommendation, space in classrooms for in-person instruction was limited, requiring some schools that chose to open to create staggering class schedules or other means of keeping children apart.

More from the Associated Press:

Three feet "gives school districts greater flexibility to have more students in for a prolonged period of time," said Kevin Quinn, director of maintenance and facilities at Mundelein High School in suburban Chicago.

In recent months, schools in some states have been disregarding the CDC guidelines, using 3 feet as their standard. Studies of what happened in some of them helped sway the agency, said Greta Massetti, who leads the CDC's community interventions task force.

"We don't really have the evidence that 6 feet is required in order to maintain low spread," she said. Also, younger children are less likely to get seriously ill from the coronavirus and don't seem to spread it as much as adults do, and "that allows us that confidence that that 3 feet of physical distance is safe."

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the revised recommendations are a "roadmap to help schools reopen safely, and remain open, for in-person instruction." She said in-person schooling gives students not only "the education they need to succeed" but access to crucial social and mental health services.

The changes include:

  • Removing recommendations for plastic shields or other barriers between desks, which lack evidence showing they prevent COVID-19 transmission.
  • Revising social distancing recommendations to at least 3 feet of space between desks in elementary schools, even in towns and cities with high community spread, provided students and faculty wear masks.
  • Revising school spacing requirements to three feet for middle and high schools in areas with low community spread. The CDC recommends that older children in areas with high community spread continue to social distance at six feet.
Outside the classroom, the CDC continues to recommend that students and faculty socially distance by at least six feet.

The new guidelines were met with skepticism from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who told the AP that her 1.6 million-member union would review the science but is concerned the CDC's change "has been driven by a lack of physical space rather than the hard science on aerosol exposure and transmission."

Chicago Teachers Union stalls HS reopening by telling teachers not to reveal if they've been vaccinated



The Chicago Teachers Union is continuing to needlessly obstruct the reopening of public high schools in the city by instructing members not to reveal if they have received a coronavirus vaccination or not.

What are the details?

For more than two months, the union has clashed with the city's school system, Chicago Public Schools, over its plan to resume in-person instruction. The union's complaint centered around allegedly inadequate safety protocols, despite the city spending $100 million to make schools coronavirus-safe.

Last month, the district finally opened its doors to tens of thousands of students attending kindergarten through eighth grade after weeks of tense negotiation between the union and CPS. The union originally voted to defy the reopening plan and threatened to strike if any teachers were disciplined for refusing to return to the classroom. As part of its reasoning, the union claimed teachers' vaccination schedules were unsatisfactory.

But now the union is reportedly stalling any further reopening plans by instructing members not to disclose whether they have been vaccinated or not in a survey being circulated to faculty and staff.

According to a report by WBBM-TV, in a letter sent to its more than 20,000 members, the teachers' union advised that members "wait to respond to [CPS'] vaccination survey."

"I don't have a problem with people answering this kind of survey," insisted CTU President Jesse Sharkey. "I do have a problem with CPS not bargaining it with us."

The report noted that as of last week, CPS' vaccination page showed that while 16,500 faculty and staff had been offered vaccinations, only about 4,200 reported receiving the shot.

What else?

Adding to the drama, this week, CPS put forward a plan to open city high schools for in-person instruction on April 19. But, once again, the union pushed back.

"We have no agreement on returning to in-person learning in high schools on any date, nor will there be an agreement until we know our school buildings can reopen safely," the union said in a defiant statement.

The union's resistance comes even as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last month that school reopening should not be conditioned on teacher vaccinations and as much of the country is waking to the idea that a return to in-person instruction is absolutely vital for the health of its children.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called out the CTU for operating based on political motives.

"When you have unions that have other aspirations beyond being a union, and maybe being something akin to a political party, then there's always going to be conflict," she said during an interview with the New York Times.

Republican senators demand answers from CDC on 'pseudo-scientific cover' for keeping schools closed



Republican senators on Wednesday said they would probe whether the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on school reopening were influenced by politics rather than by science after scientists accused the CDC of misinterpreting their research to keep schools closed.

In an op-ed published Tuesday, Drs. Tara Henderson, Monica Gandhi, Tracy Beth Hoeg, and Daniel Johns said the recent school reopening guidance issued by the CDC "is an example of fears influencing and resulting in misinterpretation of science and harmful policy."

"Keeping schools closed or even partially closed, based on what we know now is unwarranted, is harming children, and has become a human rights issue," the doctors said, noting that while the science supports reopening schools, only about half of U.S. schools are open for in-person instruction.

Appearing on "America's Newsroom" on Fox News, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he would ask the CDC how it got reopening schools wrong, suggesting that politically connected teachers' unions are exerting influence on the Biden administration's policies.

"You start to wonder whether there's some political influence," Rubio said. "Common sense tells you there are powerful teacher unions in parts of this country who are very important to the Democratic Party, key allies of Joe Biden, and they don't want to open. And rather than have to line up against them, this is a scientific cover, a pseudo-scientific cover for them not to have to reopen."

He said that the costs of keeping schools closed are far outweighing the potential benefits of reduced COVID-19 spread.

"The cost of not reopening schools, we know, are very, very high. We see the mental health crisis among young people, the learning losses that are occurring, not to mention the social aspects of it. And the benefits, I think, are a diminishing return at this point," Rubio said. "There is clear science and evidence that includes schools that have been open now for months, including in Florida, that you can reopen schools safely even without vaccines in place, even without rigorous testing.

"It can be done, it is being done, and there's no reason why more places can't do it."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) also demanded answers from the CDC on "America Reports."

"What we would like to know is how they parsed this information, because it appears that what the CDC did was to go into the research and say, OK, we have a narrative that we need to meet. We need to make certain that we are following what the teachers' unions want to have happen, which is to keep the schools closed to keep children out of the classrooms," she said.

Researchers: CDC ignoring science, ‘harming children’ with its fear-driven guidance on schools



A team of scientists slammed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday for misinterpreting their research and harming children by hamstringing schools with strict reopening guidelines.

What are the details?

In a blistering op-ed, published in USA Today, the researchers unequivocally declared, "Keeping schools closed or even partially closed, based on what we know now is unwarranted, is harming children, and has become a human rights issue."

They argued that despite the Biden administration's repeated promise to trust the science, the CDC was actually ignoring the science and operating from a position of unreasoning fear.

"The recent school reopening guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an example of fears influencing and resulting in misinterpretation of science and harmful policy," the researchers wrote. "In the United States, about half of schools are either in person or a hybrid. President Joe Biden ran on a campaign indicating that science and data would guide his policy. As we approach the anniversary of the first COVID-19 shut down, this approach is needed more than ever, especially when it comes to schools."

The CDC, though acknowledging in its guidance that "it is critical for schools to open as safely and as soon as possible, and remain open," has consistently issued needlessly stringent guidelines that ultimately cripple schools' ability to reopen. Many schools in an effort to remain in compliance find themselves wanting in terms of supplies or out of capacity due to social distancing.

The CDC even cites one of the scientist's research on virus transmission in Wisconsin schools, the scientists noted, yet it refuses to "take that data and new analyses from that data set into account."

"Here are the facts," the scientists state. "First, children are not at significant risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19 ... Second, viral spread is minimal in schools with appropriate safety precautions ... Third, no science supports mandating 6 feet of distance with children wearing masks ... Fourth, despite fearmongering regarding variants in America, we have not seen evidence that variants are spreading through in-person schools.

"States are getting the message" on how to safely reopen without unnecessarily restrictive mitigation measures, they continue, "Why hasn't the CDC?"

What else?

The researchers made sure to mention that school closures carry with them many dangerous short-term and long-term consequences. Those consequences include the upending of social development in younger children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as the inflicting of mental and psychological damage.

"We are observing a significant psychological epidemic in children with depression and anxiety due to the isolation associated with school closure, with suicidal behaviors," they grimly stated.

That is not even to mention the potentially millions of students who are now "missing" from school systems as a result of prolonged school closures.

"We must act for children," the scientists conclude. "And the science shows we can safely open our schools now for full-time (nonhybrid) learning and keep them open."