More COVID school closures spell the end of teachers unions empire

Unnecessary closures will have profound negative consequences on children

Imagine being a second grader in a major city right now. If you entered kindergarten during the 2019-20 school year, COVID first closed your school in March, potentially offering “remote learning.”

As you prepared to enter first grade the following fall, you were one of more than half of students nationwide for whom the school doors were still shut, again having access to remote instruction only.

Incredibly, as you entered second grade, the 2021-22 school year, the district superintendent bows down to the powerful teachers union and shifts back to “virtual learning.”

Another teachers group, National Educators United, is now pushing for a nationwide closure of schools for at least “two weeks.” Yeah, like that worked out so well last time. In reality, you’ve hardly been in what could pass for “school” since COVID began. Even the days you had access to in-person instruction, learning to read was made harder through masks, your short lunches were spent socially distanced from your friends, and you couldn’t play on the playground equipment during recess.

This scenario has been playing out for millions of children across the country since March 2020. And now, as students return from winter break, school districts across America—including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Newark—have regressed to remote learning once more, foreclosing access to in-person instruction for nearly 200,000 students.

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