President Biden told Randi Weingarten’s teachers union just eight days into his term that “I’m not leaving you” – choosing to retain key allies and donors while fulfilling his campaign promise to return children affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to school by his 100th birthday day at the office, a great new book was revealed.
The January 28, 2021 call from Biden to the president of the American Federation of Teachers at his home in New York — recounted by Franklin Foer in his new book “The Last Politician” — came a day before Weingarten and his lieutenants launched efforts to undermine reopening guidance issued two weeks later by the Center Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden, Foer wrote, told Weingarten that “he knew he was very hot on school reopening” and assured him that “he was a loyal friend.”
“I’m not leaving you at school,” Biden reportedly said. “I want you to know that.”
The push by Weingarten, first revealed by The Post in May 2021 and further detailed earlier this year, also followed a Jan. 21 meeting at the White House with her, first lady Jill Biden, and National Education Association President Becky Pringle. During the meeting, Foer recounted, the first lady — herself an NEA member — praised Weingarten as “the kind of general who is never far from the front lines.”
President Biden told Randi Weingarten’s teacher union just eight days into his term that “I’m not leaving you”. American Federation of Teachers.
“I said I’m going to take you with me to the White House,” Jill Biden told Weingarten and Pringle, according to Foer. “And on day one, you were here.”
Beginning January 29, 2021, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky emailed, called and texted Weingarten to discuss the long-awaited guidelines, a level of cooperation the union was unaware of.
“Thank you again for the rich discussion on Friday about the upcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the recommendations made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT,” emailed Kelly Trautner, the AFT’s senior director for health issues. on Monday, February 1, describing the union as a “thought partner” of the CDC. The message was forwarded to Walensky by Carole Johnson, the White House’s coronavirus testing coordinator.
“I didn’t leave you at school. I want you to know that,” the president told American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten in a phone call on January 28, 2021. Rod Lamkey – CNP / MEGA
Another exchange revealed Weingarten is proposing language that halts full return to school, prolonging the learning disruption that has caused sharp declines in math and reading scores across America.
On February 11, the day before the guidance was released, the AFT president sent a direct message to Walensky to say that he had “heard something from [New York Times] leaks that seem to contradict the discussion. Do you have time to call.”
Walensky complained in response that he was in a “meeting wall” and asked Weingarten to “ping what you learned.”
Over the next two weeks, Biden Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky emailed, called and texted Weingarten to coordinate school reopening guidelines.REUTERS
The language objected to by Weingarten read, in part, “all schools may provide in-person instruction (whether full or hybrid), through strict adherence to mitigation strategies.”
In guidance issued the following day, the phrase “all schools can provide in-person instruction” was changed to “all schools have the option to provide in-person instruction.”
The guidelines also include two “recommendations” AFT made to the CDC, allowing for both school closures based on high levels of community transmission and remote work options for teachers who are deemed to either be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 themselves or stay with someone similar risk profile.
In September 2020, Biden blamed then-President Donald Trump and his education secretary for failing to get students back into the classroom during a speech about reopening schools. Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
The AFT praised the guidance in a press release, saying “CDC is confronting fears of a pandemic with facts and evidence,” even though the agency had published a study a month earlier showing the in-person instruction did not “contribute meaningfully to increased community transmission.” of the virus.
Meanwhile, the White House is revising an earlier pledge by Biden, from reopening “the majority of our schools” by the 100-day mark (April 30, 2021), to applying it only to schools up to 8th grade, to considering it open if they only offer in-person tutoring once a week.
“The goal he set was to own a majority of schools – so, more than 50 schools[%] – opened on the 100th day of his presidency. And that means some teaching in the classroom. So, at least one day a week. Hopefully more. And obviously, it’s just as safe in every local school and district,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Feb. 9.
“He is, in effect, acknowledging that for thousands of students, the rest of the school year will be lost as a result of the pandemic,” Foer wrote of Biden’s olive branch extended to teachers unions.Christopher Sadowski
At that time, about two-thirds of American schools offered at least one day of face-to-face learning per week, which many parents considered the bare minimum.
Psaki’s announcement, Foer wrote, is the same as Biden’s “acknowledgment that for thousands of students throughout [2020-21] school year will be lost due to the epidemic,” the result of a strategy to “make it easier for the union to accept its goals, avoiding the kind of confrontation that might explode in a strike.”
Biden, according to Foer, “would never force teachers to go back to school. The plan is to give them time and space to get comfortable with the idea, to smother them in Jill Biden love.”
Walensky in an interview declined to say whether his agency’s guidelines are supported by science.AFP via Getty Images
The continued shutdown, in the view of the White House, is “the price of peace.”
However, in September 2020, Biden blamed then-President Donald Trump and his education secretary for failing to get students back into the classroom.
“Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are not rising. And we all see the results,” he said during a speech in Wilmington, Del. “Millions of students are now starting the new school year the same way they ended the last one — at home.”
The Biden administration would not announce until the following year that 95% of US public schools had returned to full-time in-person learning. MediaNews Group via Getty Images
On February 14, 2021, Walensky declined to say in a CNN interview whether his agency’s guidelines are supported by science and support remote learning options in the roughly 99% of public school districts labeled as high-spread zones.
The Biden administration will not announce until early 2022 that 95% of US public schools have returned to full-time, face-to-face learning.
The AFT gave more than $2.6 million to Democratic candidates during the 2020 election cycle, according to political donation tracking website OpenSecrets, while the NEA gave more than $2.4 million. Biden himself received more than $245,000 from teachers unions during the campaign, more than four times the amount taken in by the next closest candidate — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
Weingarten and National Education Association President Becky Pringle met with first lady Jill Biden on Jan. 21, 2021, to discuss school policy.AP
Biden’s long and lucrative relationship with Weingarten dates back to at least 2010, when the two came face-to-face during a labor meeting after the Rhode Island school board fired all of its faculty for delivering “terrible test results” that year, Foer wrote.
Then-President Barack Obama had praised the school board’s decision, but Biden privately expressed his disagreement with his boss to Weingarten after he hit her during the meeting.
“I hear you. Give me time, and I’ll get this over with,” Biden whispered to him, according to Foer, who wrote that Biden’s anger and defense of his attacks on Obama “were subservient and performative. While Biden was loyal to his boss, Weingarten felt as if -as if he had found a true ally.”
Representatives for the AFT and NEA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
