Randi Weingarten Is Lying About Working to Re-Open The Schools, Says... CNN and Lori Lightfoot

Randi Weingarten testified before Congress, perjuring herself so hard that a criminal referral is warranted. She claimed that all during the pandemic, she and her fellow teachers union officials were working every day "trying to get schools open."

Didja now?

Leading the amnesia parade is Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers president who attempted to erase two years of Covid history in testimony last week to the House of Representatives that was, literally, unbelievable.

"We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools," she told the House. "We know that young people learn and connect best in person, so opening schools safely--even during a pandemic--guided our actions, which I will describe in detail."

Alas, her "detail" omitted a few things. Such as her description in July 2020 of the Trump Administration's push to reopen schools for in-person learning that autumn as

She also left out the detail that local union affiliates were the most aggressive opponents of school reopening throughout 2021 and even into 2022. "We are practically begging [the Chicago Teachers Union] to come to the table so we can get a deal done," Chicago's Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in February 2021.
Even a year later, in January 2022, the Chicago union again voted against in-person learning. The union said it wouldn't relent until the surge in Covid-19 cases subsided, or the school district signed an agreement "establishing conditions for return" approved by the Chicago union.

After Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered Florida schools to reopen in autumn 2020, the Florida Education Association sued the state to keep them closed. The schools opened--much to the benefit of students who learn far better in person according to all the evidence. We could cite many other union quotes and efforts.

Ms. Weingarten and others are trying to rewrite history because they realize now, far too late, that their lockdowns are unpopular. The public can see the damage in lost learning and livelihoods. The lockdown lobbyists want everyone to forget it all happened, but it's important for democratic accountability that they don't get away with it.

Surprisingly, Weingarten got called out for her lies on CNN, of all places,
by "CNN political commentator" Scott Jennings.

CNN political commentator Scott Jennings accused American Federation of Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten of having "no remorse" for the damage done by lengthy pandemic-era school closure during a heated discussion on Thursday night.

Jennings pilloried Weingarten, an influential union leader and Biden administration ally, a day after she defended her involvement in the controversial school lockdowns during a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill.

"We don't know each other, but 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," Jennings said during the segment, according to a recording from Mediaite.

"I think you'll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school closures," Jennings continued.

"There are numerous statements you made over the summer of '20 scaring people to death about the possibility of opening schools, and I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that's been done to these kids. 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,'" he added. "I am shocked, I am stunned. And there are millions of parents who feel the exact same way."

...

Throughout the pandemic, Weingarten and other union officials pushed for schools to stay closed until strict safety precautions were in place -- a move that improperly delayed in-person instruction to the detriment of young children, according to critics.

"We wanted to be in school; I've said that over and over again today," Weingarten said during her testimony.

Earlier this week, The Post reported that Weingarten had consulted with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and White House officials prior to a Feb. 12, 2021, announcement that slowed a full reopening of in-person instruction for students.

When pressed by Jennings on her actions, Weingarten defended her handling of the situation.

"I don't know you, sir, and you don't know me. But I have worked for the last 20 or 30 years helping kids every single day. I've been a schoolteacher, I've been a union leader," Weingarten replied. "I knew and understood the importance of reopening the schools and the importance of making sure that people were safe."

Weingarten says she conducted "polls" -- almost certainly of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country -- and those "polls" said that parents wanted the schools to permanently stunt their children's development.

"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. I'm really sorry about your kids," she added.

Jennings fired back, pointing out that the US had lagged behind European counterparts on return-to-school initiatives.

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

Weingarten said that "nobody wanted to keep kids at home."

"The schools in Europe that opened sooner than we did, and most them did, had the mitigating strategies that we were just talking about," Weingarten added. "It wasn't negotiable."

Video below.

And now Weingarten gets heat again from CNN, when a CNN Bobblehead asks Lori Lightfoot if Randi Weingarten ever showed any evidence of wanting to open the Chicago public schools:

HARLOW: And you talk about not being able to break through an anger bubble. What is that?

LIGHTFOOT: Look, I think people are angry, they're frustrated, they're fearful because COVID-19 really pulled the rug out from everybody and upended our assumptions about what our daily life was going to be. The future is still not clear and so a lot of people have manifested that anxiety as anger.

...

HARLOW: You talk about taking on -- you really went head-to-head with the teachers union --

LIGHTFOOT: Yes.

HARLOW: -- in Chicago. And now we're starting to see the evidence. I'm seeing it as a parent. I -- we are seeing the data come out about the learning loss --

LIGHTFOOT: Yes.

HARLOW: -- from these schools being shut for so long.

The union called conditions for in-person schooling, for a long time there in Chicago, unsafe, right? They were representing teachers that didn't feel safe. You disagreed.

Wasn't the union just doing its job and advocating for teachers that didn't feel safe, or do you think that their moves harmed our children?

LIGHTFOOT: Look, obviously, every union should advocate for its members but it's got to be in the context of an organization. Schools are about children.

We demonstrated over and over again that our schools were safe. We put $100 million into retrofitting classrooms, making sure that they had the PPE. Making sure that every single classroom had filters to make sure that the air was safe. Deep cleaning of every single building.

But fundamentally, we know that where children learn the best and where they are safest is in the classroom and in-person learning. And none of our parents signed up to be homeschoolers. And the learning loss is real. We're making big steps in that direction but the union needed to work with us and they never did that.

HARLOW: Here's what Randi Weingarten, who heads that union, said. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERAL OF TEACHERS: We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The former education secretary Betsy DeVos responded to that, accusing her of revisionist history. Do you agree with DeVos?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, what I will say is this. That may have been what Randi Weingarten was saying at the national level and I believe that to be true. I had conversations with her at the time that lead me to believe that's what she wanted to do. That's not the reality that was happening on the ground in cities like Chicago, like Los Angeles, and other places.

HARLOW: OK.

LIGHTFOOT: We needed to get our kids back in school. And I'm unapologetic about the fight to make sure that we put our kids and our parents first.

Ed Morrissey points out that the teachers unions made hostage demands, and when those hostage demands were met, they simply added new hostage demands:

Lightfoot's looking for excuses for her own failures, of course, but that doesn't make her wrong about Weingarten. This confirms what we already know -- Weingarten and the unions did nothing to facilitate a return to normal school operation. They spoke out of both sides of their mouths constantly during the pandemic shutdowns, insisting that all they needed was X to go back, and then promptly changing their demands when they got X. For instance, remember when the unions insisted on prioritizing vaccines for teachers in order to reopen schools? When they got that prioritization, the unions then insisted that they couldn't go back until all the children were vaccinated as well.

Video of the exchange between Harlow and Lightfoot at the Ed Morrissey link.

posted by Ace at 01:42 PM

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