How about the truth this time?

 How about the truth this time?

 

Teachers’ unions across the country are crying foul because families and elected officials are suggesting now might be a good time to get students back to work in school buildings.  The unions are crying it is not safe for the children.   I can’t remember the last time the unions did anything for the children.  The negotiations for new contracts are all around salary and benefits for themselves.  In fact, there is little evidence that being in the building seriously endangers children or teachers.   How could there be since it is almost a year since either has been in buildings.  Yet private schools both large and small have had in-school classes for many months without any significant outbreaks.  And the cases of the virus that do exist in these schools were almost entirely contracted outside of school.  Teachers have not been particularly smart either.  While arguing that being in school buildings is unsafe, they post FB photos showing themselves teaching from various vacation spots.  

What IS unhealthy for students is being out of school.  Very young children are losing opportunities to be taught social skills and develop emotional growth.  All children are losing ground with online instruction, some a year or more. The dropout rates in urban areas are huge. Will these kids come back and how far behind will they be?  Adolescents are suffering severe mental health issues while the suicide rate spikes.  Meanwhile, teachers insist that they are not safe in schools!   

Somehow frontline health care workers are doing their jobs.  People who work in grocery stores and at the Amazon warehouses and delivery personnel are doing their jobs.  Auto mechanics, retail sales people are all doing their jobs.  These teachers who refuse to do their jobs are being very well paid to teach from a lap top on a beach, their deck at home or wherever they can get an internet signal.  The average teacher’s salary in Maryland is over $69,000.   In normal times they work 180 days plus a few training days and other days off to do paperwork.  The rest of us work 237 days a year- that includes time off for weekends, federal holidays and a 2-week vacation.  I am pretty sure the grocery clerks that make sure we can get food are not that well paid.  So far Congress has appropriated 54 BILLION dollars for COVID aid to public schools and another 130 billion is in the works.

When are the kids going to see the benefit of this money?   The unions need to fess up.  They have a good deal here.  Full salaries and benefits, no commuting, working from wherever there is a signal- Oh right but is only the children’s safety that concerns them.  How about the truth this time!