Follow science, not teachers’ unions

Follow the science. That was Joe Biden’s promise to the American people – until Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers disagreed.

I have spent much of my time as governor saying that we need to put children and parents first in public education. The New Jersey Teachers Union has spent tens of millions of dollars opposing my reform efforts and protecting the status quo. As a result, our costs per student were among the highest in the country, and families in many urban districts were held hostage by failure.

Most US public schools have been closed to in-person learning for the past year. Those that have opened are proving to be relatively safe. In an article published Jan. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, three researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found “little evidence that schools have significantly contributed to increased community transmission” of the coronavirus. Data from reopened classrooms does not show the rapid spread that has been observed in collective living quarters and high density workplaces.

CDC researchers examined more than 90,000 students in 11 districts of North Carolina and found that only 32 students and staff were infected at the school. During the same period, 773 were infected outside of school.

On January 26, the science was clear: schools can reopen with appropriate guarantees. Then the teachers’ unions got involved and the CDC changed its mind.