Posts tagged SCHOOL CLOSURES
Talks Resume Today Ahead of Potential LAUSD Strike Next Week
April 9, 2026 // Even a partial agreement may not be enough to keep schools open. If one or more unions fail to reach a deal, district officials have indicated that maintaining normal operations would be nearly impossible. Right now, union leaders are projecting unity across roles that don’t always align. In a statement, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz emphasized that educators and school staff are “ready to act” next Tuesday, if meaningful progress isn’t made.
The SFUSD teachers strike has now followed Maria Su home
February 16, 2026 // District representatives did not respond to a request for comment. The protest was led by community groups serving youth, such as PODER and Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. Yellow sun with wide rays extends from the right against a clear blue sky background. Subscribe to The Daily Because “I saw a TikTok” doesn’t always cut it. Dozens of stories, delivered every day. Sign up now Since teachers walked off their jobs Monday, the district and union have reached agreements on some key demands — such as safeguards for the use of artificial intelligence and sanctuary protections for immigrant students — but they remain in conflict over wage increases, dependent healthcare, and special education staffing. Winnie Porter, a retired Spanish teacher and librarian who worked in the school district for nearly 40 years, said protesting at Su’s home is justified. “She’s bringing it to our homes,” Porter said. “No healthcare for our kids, our families.
Union Activists Launch Full Scale Attack on Students, Families in AZ
February 8, 2026 // But now, the same sorts of union activists who called for shuttering schools during the pandemic and who unleashed unprecedented learning loss upon our public school students are now trying to smother the state’s flourishing ESA program. Despite the effort to paint this campaign as “protecting education,” it is nothing more than direct attack on students and families.
Op-ed: MARY KATHARINE HAM: Teachers union bosses put themselves first, teachers and students last
April 23, 2025 // Just recently, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst uncovered $3.3 million in taxpayer money, and 87,000 hours spent at one agency alone over just two years that went to thousands of hours of union-related activities instead of the American people. Elsewhere, the IRS union is negotiating for its members to show up only once a week in person and retain a bunch of generous bonuses. An unwelcome April surprise, just like your tax bill!
VIRGINIA: Fairfax County’s teachers unions fail students. Commentary
January 19, 2024 // But all hope is not lost, even in the face of chronic absenteeism and declining standards in public education. In 2023, 20 states expanded K-12 educational choice options for America’s children and families. If public funds followed children instead of failing institutions during the pandemic, families with fewer resources also could have homeschooled or taken their children to one of the many private schools that didn’t shut their doors on the orders of teachers unions. Just as they are across much of the nation, here in Fairfax County, teachers unions are a substantial obstacle to quality public education — and school choice is the solution.
Commentary: Teachers strikes cost students weeks of school in 2023
January 3, 2024 // Betsy DeVos said that the strike-induced school closures "are continuing to exacerbate a problem [the unions] created by the extended lockdowns and shutdowns during COVID." "They're doing it at the expense of the kids they are supposed to be serving," she said. "The unions continue to try to amass more and more political power and extort taxpayers for more and more money and continue to promote a very leftist ideology across the board." DeVos said that lost learning due to missed school days is "devastating for kids [and] families" and noted that closing schools creates difficulties for families beyond the missed time in the classroom. "For those people who have jobs to go to on a daily basis, [they] now have to scramble to try to figure out what to do with the children that are left at home because their schools aren't opening to serve them," she said. "These unions continue to really whipsaw the people around who are supposed to be their customers; they're supposed to be the people they're serving. And yet there's no regard for the impacts on them.
Teachers’ union boss blames math test slide on COVID — after fighting to keep remote learning
December 6, 2023 // The leader of the second-largest teachers’ union in the US linked the worldwide drop in math scores on a key international test to the COVID-19 pandemic — during which she had lobbied against a full return to in-person learning. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten issued a statement that said remote learning was to blame for the drop in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) math evaluation after scores were released Tuesday.
America’s Largest Teachers Union Isn’t Beyond Reform
July 20, 2023 // Washington can make the NEA less political and more accountable by revising its federal charter.
Op-ed: Placing teachers unions’ power above students’ lives
July 11, 2023 // Ms. Weingarten is the head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers union, and Mr. Pompeo’s assessment notwithstanding, President Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, just appointed her to serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s school safety council. According to Mr. Mayorkas, the council will advise the department on school safety and help it “counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland.”
Randi Weingarten Appointed to DHS School Safety Advisory Council
June 23, 2023 // In the fall of 2020, Weingarten denounced calls to reopen schools as “reckless, callous, cruel.” An AFT affiliate in Chicago similarly condemned then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2022, who called her efforts to reopen school “rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.”