Unions have an out-sized voice

 Unions have an out-sized voice

 

Just about everyone agrees that it is in the best interest of children for them to be back to in-school learning.   There are huge differences of opinion about just how fast that should be happening.

Unions have taken on an out-sized voice in making the determination of when kids need to be back in school.  Mostly they push for a much more conservative approach.  They are arguing that they, too, want children back in school but only when it is completely safe to do so.   Of course, teachers are just one of the stakeholders invested in the decision.  The parents, school administrators – oh and the students- all have significant investment in getting children back into the school buildings for in-school learning.   But schools can’t open without teachers to staff them.  Therein lies the rub.  Reprising the refrain from the Viet Nam war protestors, teachers are just saying, “hell no we won’t go”.   One school district in Maryland had to delay the partial re-opening of its high schools because teachers wouldn’t come to school.   A program in Baltimore City serves about 48 students who are homeless have huge difficulty accessing online instruction.   The children are in two groups of 24 each.   They receive breakfast and lunch at school.  They s it at desks with Chrome Books surrounded by plastic shields, while they learn online.  Where are the teachers?   They are at home, they refused to come in.  Instead teacher aides walk around the room helping the children as necessary.  Teachers aren’t safe to come in, the aides and kids are-go figure!   So far there have been no virus outbreaks among the 48 children.  Baltimore City serves over 83 thousand students.  Forty-eight of those kids are in-person in-school, sort of!

The unions are also pushing back against any hybrid systems.  The unions have made it pretty clear they do not want teachers back in school until they are 100% safe.  When exactly will that be?   When exactly was ANYONE 100% safe in a school or anywhere else.

Parents are pushing back against the unions.  “Educators and teachers’ unions are not infectious disease experts or public health officials, and frankly, that’s who parents trust in making these decisions,” said Keri Rodrigues, the founding president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy organization with hundreds of parent groups across the country.

In the U.S., school districts with active unions have been last to open or have not opened at all.  The American Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten does say that waiting for a vaccine in every classroom is a stance that goes too far.  But she also says that when people disagree with the union stance it is just a reflection of “typical anti-union, anti-teacher animus”. " If one teacher dies from the virus that is one too many".   Of course that is true, but it is also true of if one grocery store clerk, one nurse, one grandparent dies of the virus that is also one too many.

No one is suggesting we risk the health of teachers, but why are so many teachers content with risking the futures of children.