OPINION:
Last summer, public school teachers in Washington, D.C. lined up “body bags” outside the school system’s offices to protest a partial return to the classrooms.
In January, Chicago public school teachers produced a music video using interpretive dance to support its union’s decision not to return to work.
In February, Los Angeles Unified School teachers staged a car caravan and rally voicing their concerns about reopening schools in-person before it was safe to do so.
These stunts resulted in many public schools staying closed nine months longer than nearly all private schools, despite the science clearly depicting children are not vectors of the coronavirus.
Now, the progressive left and their allies in the media are trying to rewrite history in an all-out propaganda push after Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president, did an about-face last week saying public schools should fully reopen in the fall.
Really? What changed? Well, a scandal was uncovered.
Earlier this month, Americans for Public Trust, a conservative watchdog group, discovered numerous emails through FOIA requests showing the AFT colluded with the Biden administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to politicize the “science” to keep schools closed and kids stuck at home.
The CDC was preparing to write guidance that schools could fully reopen in the fall regardless of community spread, but caved to the teachers’ union allowing schools in areas with high coronavirus community spread to opt out of in-person learning. A CNN analysis noted 99% of U.S. kids fell within those areas.
Moreover, around the time the emails were being exchanged, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky seemed bullish about in-person learning saying “safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.”
The following day the Biden administration walked back her comments, claiming she was speaking in her “personal capacity,” only and parents would have to wait for official CDC guidance to be issued.
After these emails were uncovered, the Biden administration claimed it was business as usual, not smoking gun evidence they had thoroughly politicized the CDC bending it to the whim of one of their largest political benefactors, the teachers’ unions.
“It’s actually longstanding best practice for the CDC to engage with organizations, groups that are going to be impacted by guidance and recommendations issued by the agency,” explained White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on May 4.
Yeah right.
Now it’s clean-up on aisle one. Ms. Weingarten dramatically reversed course committing to a full reopening of schools in the fall and CDC’s second-in-command Anne Schuchat announced she was stepping down this week. Coincidentally, Ms. Schuchat was on several email exchanges with the ATF.
Since entering office, President Joe Biden’s CDC has been conspiring with the teachers’ unions to keep children out of the classroom for as long as possible.
The only thing that changed this month was that they were exposed.
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