Recent Tweet from Randi Weingarten (Head of the American Federation of Teachers) about Covid lockdowns of schools.
What we have seen in public education is that technology cannot replace teachers. Remote education did not work in part because you have to have relationships. You have to build trust.
Evidence of what resulted.
Overall, 9-year-olds scored, on average, seven points lower on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test last winter than two years earlier, just before the pandemic erupted. That is the steepest fall ever. They also scored five points lower in English, the sharpest plunge in 30 years.
Math scores for black students who tend to live in areas where the unions kept schools closed longest fell a whopping 13 points.
Is that systemic racism?
Meanwhile Weingarten and her AFT used Covid money for salary increases above funding educational purposes.
What Weingarten really accomplished was giving a boost for charter, private, religious, and schooling at home alternatives.
Amen.