Teachers unions cheered this week when Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, calling the left’s candidacy a major victory for public educators.
But critics warn that Harris’ selection of Walz, a former teachers union member who opposes what he has called the school choice “agenda,” over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a school choice supporter, should raise alarm bells among parents and children in public education. The teachers union pushed hard to extend school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic – many districts remained closed for over a year.
“Anyone who makes Randi this upset is a red flag for parents and students,” former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Tuesday after teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten posted a video praising Walz’s election.
“We are so excited,” Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said of Walz. “We have known him for years as a social studies teacher, as a veterinarian, as a union member, as a congressman, as a governor. He cares about working people. We have seen it.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris is greeted by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz before delivering a speech at a campaign rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“One teacher and one union member. Enough said,” wrote the Chicago Teachers Union, which is currently being sued by parents over its handling of the pandemic.
The president of the National Education Association (NEA), Becky Pringle, also praised Walz as an “extraordinary choice.”
The AFT was the first union to officially endorse Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Biden was pushed out of the race by his own party. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City and the Washington Teachers’ Union also said they were “proud” to endorse Harris.
After Biden’s withdrawal last month, Harris gave a speech at the AFT in which she sharply criticized Republicans for wanting to “ban books.”
Democrats and union leaders responsible for school closures face little consequence, despite evidence that children have been harmed
The overwhelming support of teachers unions has led to renewed scrutiny of their sweeping influence over public school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the same unions supporting the Harris-Walz ticket have continued to lobby school districts to keep children and teachers out of class as recently as 2022.
When schools in Republican states like Florida reopened in the fall of 2020, Weingarten called the effort “reckless, callous, cruel.” The Chicago Teachers Union echoed that sentiment at the time, claiming the move was “rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.”
When President Biden moved into the White House in January 2021, AFT and NEA worked closely with then-White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Previous analysis by Fox News Digital showed that the two unions played a significant role in shaping national guidelines.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is sworn in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Special Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC, on June 3. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Weingarten pointed to the possibility of future school closures through January 2022, writing, “Schools have very real logistical decisions to make. We know kids are better off in in-person classes, but the surge is real. We need adequate staffing and safety measures, including testing, masks and ventilation. There is a lot of stress.”
That same month, the AFT-affiliated Chicago Teachers Union staged a five-day strike against Covid-19 measures that kept children out of school even longer, leading to an ongoing class-action lawsuit that alleges $213.4 million worth of classroom time was stolen from students.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, reacts before the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 26. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
The power of teachers unions in state and local politics is undeniable. The NEA has donated more than $21.7 million in the 2024 election cycle almost exclusively to Democratic candidates and liberal groups, and the AFT has donated more than $3.8 million to Democratic candidates and liberal groups this cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org.
A working paper first published in October 2020 that examined more than 10,000 school districts across the country and their plans to reopen after COVID-19 found that partisan politics and the strength of the teachers’ union in a given area had a greater impact on school reopening than local health policies.
A study published in March 2021 by Corey A. DeAngelis and Christos Makridis examined 835 public school districts across the country and found that school districts in locations with stronger teachers unions were less likely to reopen with in-person instruction and that there was no evidence that COVID-19 risk correlated with these school reopening decisions.
Just recently, the New York Times acknowledged in a report published in March that “distance learning was a major cause of the decline in performance during the pandemic.”
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Fox News Digital asked AFT to detail its role in closing public schools and whether the lockdowns were a mistake.
“It’s only weirdos like Fox News who think that way, lol – the mainstream media knows that the AFT fought for a safe reopening of schools starting in April 2020,” an AFT spokesperson responded.
The state perhaps most influenced by the power of teachers’ unions was California, which was the last in the country to reopen schools for in-person instruction. Throughout the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom refused to use his emergency powers to force schools to reopen, amid intense pressure from teachers’ unions. Even as restaurants and bars were allowed to reopen, many of the state’s school districts remained closed, particularly those with powerful teachers’ unions like those in San Francisco and Los Angeles, both of which are affiliated with the AFT.
California Governor Gavin Newsom campaigns for President Biden at a Democratic Party event in South Haven, Michigan on July 4. (Chris duMond/Shutterstock)
Republicans and parent groups angry about the lockdowns launched a recall effort against Newsom that failed in September 2021. The NEA-affiliated California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, donated $1.8 million to stop the recall effort.
Lockdowns, mandates and scandals: How Gavin Newsom’s response to COVID-19 brought California to its knees
Data from recent years have shown that school closures in the United States have had devastating effects on children’s mental health, development, and future earning potential.
A study published in June 2022 by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 70% of U.S. public schools reported an increase in the number of students seeking mental health help since the pandemic began. A study published around the same time by the American Enterprise Institute also found that nearly 1.3 million students had dropped out of public schools since the pandemic began, and schools that had been using distance learning for longer had even more students absent.
In December 2023, the Programme for International Student Assessment released a report showing that test scores for 15-year-olds in the United States had dropped 13 points compared to 2018.
School closures could also cost this generation of students $21 trillion in income over their lifetime, according to a June 2022 joint publication by the World Bank, UNICEF, FCDO, USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UNESCO.
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Fox News Digital asked the Harris-Waltz campaign team about its official stance on school choice, whether the candidates supported the closures, and whether it could declare school closures a thing of the past, but received no response.
The NEA did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment for this article.
