Press Releases

The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial on a new McKinsey & Co. report confirming that school shutdowns severely harmed students, who on average were “four months behind in reading and five months behind in math.”

Teachers unions bare a significant portion of the blame for those bleak statistics. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “teachers unions were the main architects of this calamity by first refusing to return to the classroom, then insisting on watered-down schedules. The data company Burbio found that, by the end of the spring semester, most students could attend school at least part-time. But due to union demands, the return sometimes amounted to a few days or hours of in-person learning a week.”

In Case You Missed It via the Wall Street Journal, Republican Leader of the Education and Labor Committee Virginia Foxx wrote a letter to the editor reiterating that Democrat leaders allowed teachers unions to craft their school reopening policies, then steamrolled students to advance a left-wing agenda.

Democrats and Teachers Unions Did This to Our Children

By: Rep. Virginia Foxx

August 4, 2021

(Wall Street Journal) …Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten said in a recent interview that she will ‘try’ to reopen schools fully in the fall. For students who are suffering from isolation, poor mental health, or who are falling behind in school, this lack of leadership is irresponsible, insufficient, and inexcusable.

Education is the great equalizer in our society. Democrats purport to champion social justice, yet they repeatedly deny low-income students access to high-quality education. Their failure to endorse school choice programs exacerbated school-related inequalities during the pandemic, but instead of fighting to reopen schools, they ballooned the national debt and imprisoned our children behind a screen.

Read Rep. Foxx’s full letter to the editor here.