Chicago Teachers Union Votes to Walk Off the Job and "Teach" Remotely

All.

About.

The kids.

The New Laptop Class.

CHICAGO--The Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest system in the continental U.S., cancelled classes on Jan. 5 after an overwhelming majority of its 28,000 teachers and staff voted for distance learning, not in-person classes, in the latest effort to beat the coronavirus pandemic.

Objective journalism. But then, this is The People's World. I think it's a socialist newsrag.

In other words: Same as the rest of the media.

The workers, Chicago Teachers Union/AFT Local 1 members, voted 73%-27% in a four-hour electronic vote on the evening of Jan. 4 for distance learning.

But maybe there's a plot twist?

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez then carried out his threat to close the schools, virtually locking the workers out, even barring teaching by Zoom.

Indeed, the Teachers Union whines that they're being locked out of their virtual "classrooms."

ChicagoTeachersUnion @CTULocal1

Mayor Lightfoot has started locking Chicago public school teachers and staff out of their Google Classrooms. #LoriLockout

We'll see if Groot carries out this threat: Either come into work, or you don't get paid.

A friend points out that Groot is up for reelection next year and very unpopular, even in super-leftwing, Obama-mad Chicago.

Via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, even Obama's Astroturf King David Axelrod is telling teachers unions: Enough.

That Times article is here, and it's not even behind the paywall.

They want people to read it.

After recapitulating the data on how kids are being harmed by school closings -- intellectual retardation, behavioral regression, psychological problems including increased behavioral issues, depression, and suicide -- David Leonhardt writes:

For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19. And that was probably true in the spring of 2020, when nearly all of society shut down to slow the spread of a deadly and mysterious virus.

But the approach has been less defensible for the past year and a half, as we have learned more about both Covid and the extent of children's suffering from pandemic restrictions.

Data now suggest that many changes to school routines are of questionable value in controlling the virus's spread. Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. Other interventions, like forcing students to sit apart from their friends at lunch, may also have little benefit.

One reason: Severe versions of Covid, including long Covid, are extremely rare in children. For them, the virus resembles a typical flu. Children face more risk from car rides than Covid.

The widespread availability of vaccines since last spring also raises an ethical question: Should children suffer to protect unvaccinated adults -- who are voluntarily accepting Covid risk for themselves and increasing everybody else's risk, too? Right now, the United States is effectively saying yes.

To be clear, there are some hard decisions and unavoidable trade-offs. Covid can lead to hospitalization or worse for a small percentage of vaccinated adults, especially those who are elderly or immunocompromised, and allowing children to resume normal life could create additional risk. The Omicron surge may well heighten that risk, leaving schools with no attractive options.

For the past two years, however, many communities in the U.S. have not really grappled with the trade-off. They have tried to minimize the spread of Covid -- a worthy goal absent other factors -- rather than minimizing the damage that Covid does to society. They have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults, often without acknowledging the dilemma or assessing which decisions lead to less overall harm.

Given the choices that the country has made, it should not be surprising that children are suffering so much.

But Karen wants to be part of The Laptop Class.

Could this be the start of a national counteroffensive against the occupying forces of Karen?

posted by Ace at 12:33 PM

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