Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, has been forced to deal with some extreme backlash in the wake of vocally expressing her support for a recently published article, which attempted to sound the call for its readers to declare “amnesty” for the over and intentional spreading of misinformation throughout the COVID pandemic.
Emily Oster, an economist from Brown University, wrote the article for The Atlantic, titled “Let’s Declare A Pandemic Amnesty,” this past Monday, calling on Americans to “forgive one another” for their statements and actions taken due to the virus.
Weingarten, who attempted to make use of her influence to make sure that all schools maintained their closed doors to kids throughout the pandemic and all forced mask mandates on kids that ended up sparking disastrous consequences for students, explained the author by highlighting her most recent article, stating, “I agree with @ProfEmilyOster on this.”
I agree with @ProfEmilyOster on this https://t.co/lXLjxRcj0E
— Randi Weingarten ???????????????????????????????? (@rweingarten) October 31, 2022
However, calling the calls for a full pardon has only fallen on deaf ears for those who were made to deal with the consequences of the previous statements and actions from Weingarten — among quite a few others who kicked off highly destructive policies throughout the pandemic.
Aside from the forced shutdown of various businesses by the government, the teacher’s unions shutting down their classrooms, and families and friends being heavily divided on the topic of wearing masks or just how easily the virus could end up spreading — a whole generation of kids has been afflicted with extreme academic deficiencies as a result.
The Nation’s Report Card officially put out the 2022 Mathematics and Reading Report Cards for Grades 4 and 8 last week, the report showed the average scores in both subjects across the grades for most states dropped severely — along with the students overall confidence in their reading and mathematics skills.
Also expressed by the report, the average score in math for fourth graders dropped by five points for 2019 while the average for eighth graders fell by eight points.
When looking at reading scores, the scores for both grades dropped by roughly three points.
“The results show the profound toll on student learning during the pandemic, as the size and scope of the declines are the largest ever in mathematics,” explained the commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, Peggy G. Carr.
A report from Fox News claimed that the Department of Education put out its own report back in September which expressed that online learning and school closures played a major role in the drastic drop in test scores.
“Average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020,” stated the report. “This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics.”
The president of the union stated via social media this past Friday that her group is “now focused on the urgent need to help kids recover and thrive.”
“The bottom line is everyone suffered in the pandemic […] because of the pandemic,” exclaimed Weingarten. “The disruption was everywhere, and it was bad regardless of whether schools were remote or in person.”
The union boss found herself the target of heavy criticism from Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears on the Tuesday episode of “Fox & Friends” claiming that she was the major person pushing for additional school closures which most Democrat governors chose to follow.
“Now they’re saying, oh, you know, just forget about it,” expressed Sears. “No, the problems are existing where our children did not learn.”
One spokesperson for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Jeremy Redfern, stated, “Randi, of all people, doesn’t get anything resembling ‘amnesty.’”
“Just like the children she wanted to keep out of school don’t get amnesty from their learning loss,” Redfern concluded.
Randi, of all people, doesn’t get anything resembling “amnesty.”
Just like the children she wanted to keep out of school don’t get amnesty from their learning loss. https://t.co/jq1HJ42e2Z
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) October 31, 2022
