Free Republic

A group of Chicago parents sued the Chicago Teachers Union after the union voted earlier this week to delay a return to classrooms due to COVID concerns. Chicago Public Schools and the union have yet to reach an agreement on whether in-person learning should return amid the recent uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the highly infectious omicron variant. Friday marks the third straight day classes in the district were canceled. The lawsuit, filed Thursday night by attorneys at the Liberty Justice Center, alleges that the school closures constitute an "illegal strike" and violate the union's own contract. "CTU’s resolution...

Teachers’ unions across the country are demanding that schools shut down in favor of virtual learning amid concerns over the low-risk omicron variant of the coronavirus. Virtual learning has proven detrimental to the educations, social development, and mental health of children.

“Follow the science,” it said about handling COVID. But for Team Biden, it was follow the teachers unions when it came to reopening schools. Emails between the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — provided to the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust via a Freedom of Information Act request — reveal that the Biden administration not only consulted national teachers unions before releasing school reopening guidance to the public, it put a heavy thumb on the scales in favor of the unions’ agenda.

A National Education Association (NEA) Board of Directors member and English teacher at a Pennsylvania high school posted to Facebook that she thought unvaccinated individuals with religious exemptions deserved to die, according to a screenshot of the post obtained by the social media account Libs of Tik Tok.Mollie Paige Mumau took to Facebook to condemn all individuals who have not been vaccinated due to religious exemptions, accusing this group of “hiding behind religious exemptions because they don’t want anybody to tell them what to do,” according to a screenshot of her post. Mumau said religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine...

Can you believe it’s Feather Day already?Detail from a Scandinavian Barbizon School paintingIt seems like yesterday was just Thanksgiving. On the other hand I’ve already forgotten half the things I remembered to be thankful for. I do recall however that learning how to think rather than what to think was on my list. I rather doubt that entry will make the grade, so to speak, for a place on the lists of future generations. The quality of education seems to be devolving at an ever increasing speed. We’ve whizzed right past the “what to think” stage all the way to...

After keeping Virginia schools closed for over a year and repeatedly moving the goal posts on reopening, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten successfully delivered the state to Republican Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin last week. Despite appearing at a final campaign rally for Democrat Terry McAuliffe, parents showed up to vote against her endorsement and anti-parent education policies. Now, Weingarten is finally admitting it's time for a pandemic off ramp. "It was clear that vaccines for teachers helped us reopen schools. Maybe it’s vaccines for kids helping us get to an off ramp for masks and getting to a new...

Parents who never imagined running for office battled to win seats on local school boards last week; they won some, but lost many. Their fiercest opponents were the teachers unions. The media portrayed these school board races as culture wars, but more than anything they were struggles by parents to wrest control of the boards from self-serving unions. For decades, the unions have maintained a tight grip on who gets elected. No wonder school district decisions -- about budgets, masking, COVID closures, curriculum and teacher contracts -- protect teachers first. Never mind what's best for kids. That needs to change....

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, whose organization advocated for mask mandates in pubic schools, apologized after she was caught with her mask down at the 2021 SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico. Weigarten faced criticism after Adriana Aviles, a New York City parent and former City Council candidate, posted a photo of the teacher’s union boss sitting maskless on a panel with other guests, including New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter. “Gotta love when school leaders @rweingarten @DOEChancellor mingle with others in a packed room with no masks,” Aviles wrote, “yet I wonder if everyone needed proof...

HBO star said 'what's going on in the schools' was going to be 'the issue' in future elections... Bill Maher sounded the alarm Friday night about next week's Virginia gubernatorial election, which could go to Republicans for the first time since 2009. Maher began the show's panel discussion by pointing out that Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe "should walk away with it" since resident Biden won Virginia by 10 points and McAuliffe previously served as the commonwealth's governor, 2014-2018. Instead, Maher noted, the race is "neck and neck," with GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin over an issue that Maher reminded viewers he...

On Thursday Mark Levin broadcast a letter with insider information on the teachers union, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the FBI who met and organized how to combat America’s parents who were speaking out at local school board meetings across the country. The parents were outraged at the COVID masking and vaccination rules, critical race theory indoctrination and open porn disguised as literature promoted in American schools today.Mark Levin called this the biggest scandal of his lifetime on his radio show last night.The letter by America First Legal is fascinating. According to the letter the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized...

It is hard to believe moms have now become the target of the U.S. government, but in our rapidly declining culture, every day seems to bring a new crazy. As the president of Moms for America we hear from moms all over the country who are angry and frustrated with the unrelenting authoritarian march endangering our children and completely disregarding our fundamental rights as parents. As more and more moms show up to school board meetings protesting mask mandates, graphic sexual content labeled as curriculum, and critical race theory which teaches our children to hate their country, hate their neighbor...

The labor union that represents most of New York City‘s public school teachers is allowing educators to “document issues” regarding the city’s quarantine mandate by uploading photos of violators. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), tweeted Sunday: “If you encounter issues in your classroom related to the mayor’s new quarantine guidelines for students, including cases where students are not able to maintain 3 feet of distance, please use this form to document them.” UFT then linked to an online form where teachers can report quarantine rule violations by uploading information that can include up to five photos. The form also...

Accuses Israel of war crimes, ethnic cleansing The San Diego chapter of the American Federation of Teachers passed a resolution this month rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a country and accusing the Israeli government of carrying out ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes against Palestinians. In the resolution, AFT Guild Local 1931, which represents community college teachers in San Diego, refers to Israel as "historic Palestine" and calls on the Biden administration to "hold Israel accountable for its complete disregard of international law" and implement a "prompt reassessment of military aid to Israel." The statement does not mention Palestinian terrorism. It...

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 12 pages of *records showing the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) influencing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director and the White House with their own their own “embargoed vaccine research,” as well as school reopening policy. Additionally, the CDC Director states that she used the unions’ language in the CDC’s school reopening policy.The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CDC asking for:All emails exchanged between CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky and email accounts ending in aft.org...

New York City’s largest teachers union has won a battle to keep teachers and other teachers employed if they suffer from certain medical conditions and do not wish to comply as a result of the Big Apple’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. A arbitrator ruled late Friday that teachers with certain documented medical hardships should be offered assignments outside of classrooms and placed on the city’s payroll. Other teachers who do not want a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered unpaid leave that maintains their health coverage or a severance package. City officials announced last month that all 148,000 employees of the Department...

The Biden administration tightened its masking guidance after a prominent teachers union threatened White House officials with publicly releasing harsh criticism, internal emails show. The National Education Association sent a draft statement to White House officials that included harsh criticism of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's masking guidance, the emails show. But the teachers union ultimately published a version with a much softer tone, and the CDC clarified its guidance to indicate that everyone should be masked in schools, regardless of vaccination status. The new emails show further coordination between the White House and teachers unions just months...

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is resisting full compliance with New York City’s vaccine mandate for public school teachers and staffers. Michael Mulgrew, president of UFT, said city hall has asserted that unvaccinated staffers will be taken off the payroll without exception, including those with religious and medical exemptions. “The city, however, announced during our negotiations its intentions to refuse to honor medical and religious exemptions for Department of Education (DOE) staff from COVID-19 vaccination,” Mulgrew said in a statement directed to UFT members. The union is going to try to arbitrate the impasse together with other labor groups....

Would-be school teachers at the Oklahoma Aspiring Educators Association’s recent Racial and Social Justice Symposium were told that both public schools and many of the teachers within them are tools of white supremacy. But featured speakers at the online event offered a solution: Purge the teaching profession of many of its current members, who are majority white. “Really, I want to be an agent of discomfort for white folks,” said Terry Jess, a National Education Association Social Justice Activist finalist in 2017. “I want to get folks to either commit to the work or get out of the profession. And...

First, these educators said they should be showered with exultation and privilege for persevering through the pandemic. They’re heroes. They’ve had it bad. Forget first responders, health care workers, and other folks on the front lines fighting COVID. Teachers staying at home were the real soldiers. Go to hell, guys. You didn’t want to go back to work even though the science, a subject you clowns supposedly teach, said it was safe. It was your friends at the CDC who said so, but also the same people who you colluded with to keep the schools shut down. When parents objected,...

There aren't many figures in modern American life more contemptible than Randi Weingarten, political hack, union boss, and anti-child zealot. Her cynical agitation and endless fear-mongering deliberately cause active harm to be inflicted upon millions of American children who were denied in-person classroom instruction last year. The teachers unions, bureaucrats, and elected officials who fought to keep classrooms closed did so while ignoring overwhelming data and callously turning a blind eye to the myriad disastrous ramifications of their failed 'remote' learning regime. We know, for instance, that Weingarten's special interest group lobbied behind the scenes in order to shape the...