The teachers unions are an overwhelming force against parents who want their kids returning to in-person learning, according to a politics opinion piece published in Business Insider.

The key points from writer Anthony L. Fisher:

Teachers unions are gaslighting parents and resisting science to keep schools closed.

Science experts say schools should reopen. Teachers unions say that, too, but they do everything possible to keep them closed.  

He says, “Let’s call this what it is: gaslighting.”

His views are aided by first-person experience with New York City schools. 

“It’s been 13 months since my school-aged kids stopped going to school,” he wrote.

While vaccinations and increased knowledge of the virus have moved the country forward, in “most deep-blue Democratic-governed big cities, the teachers union is the indomitable force most responsible for keeping schools closed,” Fisher writes, challenging Randi Weingarten, president of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Weingarten is quoted as saying schools want very much to open but “it’s not going to happen in two-and-a-half nanoseconds.” 

He writes that schools can reopen, for the most part, in accordance with CDC guideline – but it’s still not happening.

And as for Weingarten’s words: “That’s a metaphorical slap in the face to public school parents, painted as impatient and unappreciative, who just want to see a glimmer of hope from a powerful labor union with whom they are not invited to negotiate.” 

And finally:

“In an astounding display of cognitive dissonance, Weingarten told (NBC’s) Chuck Todd: ‘New York City has done a pretty good job in terms of showing the way’ for reopening. 

“As a first person witness, I can tell you very few NYC public schools are fully open by any meaningful metric.“

 

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