{"id":4404,"date":"2022-01-08T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T18:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=4404"},"modified":"2025-05-30T18:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T18:11:11","slug":"chicago-teachers-are-teachers-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2022\/01\/08\/chicago-teachers-are-teachers-pets\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Teachers Are Teacher\u2019s Pets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tuesday, 73 percent of Chicago teachers voted to compel their school district to ditch<\/a> classroom instruction in favor of remote learning because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s official: Some urban public school districts are employment programs first and institutions of learning secondarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The union claimed to be promoting safety. But really, the union was leaning on the early myopic response officialdom adopted to prevent COVID-19 at all costs while ignoring the hazardous-to-health side effects of lockdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chicago Teachers Union posted a 10-page paper on \u201csafe and equitable conditions for reopening\u201d Chicago public schools. The paper argued \u201cinstitutional racism\u201d is behind the higher incidence of COVID-19 among Black and Latino children \u2014 unperturbed by the damage remote learning poses for minority students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKinsey reported last month that students in majority-Black schools remain five months behind their historic levels, while students in majority white schools are two months behind \u2014 \u201cwidening pre-pandemic achievement gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remote learning robbed students of the joy (and pain) of being kids around other kids, and it\u2019s not healthy for child fitness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An August paper published in JAMA<\/em> reported that overweight and obesity for 5- to 11-year-olds increased from 36 percent to 45 percent during COVID-19 \u2014 overweight and obese children are at risk for contracting serious COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The union 10-pager also suggested Chicago \u201cdefund the police\u201d and shift $33 million from police to health care. The paper concluded, \u201cNormal wasn\u2019t working for us before. We can\u2019t go back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago parents, you\u2019ve been warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be it noted, more than 90 percent of Chicago teachers are vaccinated, which vastly reduces their risk of serious COVID-19. The district should work to accommodate the needs of the immunocompromised but otherwise treat staff like other essential workers. Like the people who work in grocery stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot took back the reins when she shut off access to Google Classroom remote programming in a bid to get teachers back in the schoolhouse. She also has threatened to withhold pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody signs up for being a home-schooler at the last minute,\u201d the progressive mayor explained. \u201cWe can\u2019t forget about how disruptive that remote process is to individual parents who have to work, who can\u2019t afford the luxury of staying home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, the harm of the union\u2019s vote falls disproportionately on those disadvantaged individuals the union claims to champion. (READ MORE: Teachers Unions\u2019 Unreasonable, Unscientific COVID Response<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schools never should have been shuttered after the 45 days to slow the spread in 2020. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not recommend mass schoolroom shutdowns. CDC guidelines instead recommended closing schools for two to five days only where confirmed cases were discovered or in districts with high community transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once a handful of elected officials decided to ignore the CDC and ordered long-term shutdowns of schools, others succumbed like dominos to the magical thinking that staying home was the ultimate public virtue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago has been joined by Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Newark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Wednesday\u2019s press briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki declined an opportunity to challenge the Chicago union during Wednesday\u2019s briefing. She only would say President Joe Biden \u201cwants schools to be open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, if the radical teachers unions choose to deprive urban kids of classroom instruction, Biden doesn\u2019t want to go all wild and crazy by criticizing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That leaves an opening for the Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corey A. DeAngelis of School Choice Now responded that when Safeway workers go on strike, \u201cfamilies can take their money elsewhere. That bottom-up accountability provides pressure\u201d on employers. \u201cThe only way out of this mess is by funding students directly and empowering families to access alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s right. School vouchers. Brought to you by the Chicago Teachers Union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, 73 percent of Chicago teachers voted to compel their school district to\u00a0ditch\u00a0classroom instruction in favor of remote learning because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":472,"featured_media":8703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[796,76,72,68,83],"coauthors":[1065],"class_list":["post-4404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unions","tag-chicago","tag-covid-19","tag-public-schools","tag-school-closures","tag-teacher-unions"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Debra J. Saunders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4404"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4404"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/4404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}