The president of one of the largest teachers’ unions in the country denied that students suffered any educational setbacks caused by virtual schooling—a claim rebuked by a variety of studies—as labor leaders push back against school reopenings.
Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), said students received a sufficient education in 2020 because they learned words like “protest” and “insurrection” rather than experiencing the benefits of in-class instruction from the union’s 33,000 members. Myart-Cruz fought against reopening efforts in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021.
“There is no such thing as learning loss,” the union president told Los Angeles Magazine. “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
High school students who attended virtual schooling suffered academically, socially, and mentally in comparison with those who had in-person instruction, according to a study from the American Educational Research Association. More than half of K-12 teachers reported a significant loss in learning due to virtual instruction, according to a report by Horace Mann. The Centers for Disease Control said virtual schooling may present more risks than in-person instruction.
Myart-Cruz successfully opposed school reopening in the fall of 2020, citing concerns with the pandemic. She went on to oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) reopening plan in the spring of 2021, which eventually resulted in a delayed hybrid reopening. Los Angeles schools fully opened in August with a mask requirement.
Laura Zorc, executive director of Building Education for Students Together, said teachers’ unions deny the facts about the negative impact of virtual schooling because they are afraid to admit they were wrong.
Wow – I teach in DC and there DEFINITELY was learning loss! We never knew if our students were in class. They would log on and leave the speakers and video off – EVERYDAY! What kind of moron would make such an assertion. We knew full well that our students were watching their siblings while their parents worked, were bored or completely lost in the content we taught, or were off playing video games.
The ” Learning Loss ” begins at home even before all this. Parents that don’t read and are on social media or TV just like their kids and embracing all sorts of fringe news that supports their life failures and ignorance . Yet they think they are smart and informed and doing ” research” into total mind washing cultish bullshit. Everything that is breaking down now is because STUPID people think they are informed and if you know History it’s exactly the indoctrination that makes current events possible.