American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten bragged that her union’s recommended changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on reopening schools had been proven right after testifying before a House subcommittee on Wednesday.
Weingarten faced members of the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic for three hours, fielding questions about her organization’s role in consulting with the CDC on the government agency’s guidelines for reopening schools.
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A major point of contention in the hearing between Weingarten and Republican members of the committee was the AFT’s request that the CDC draft guidelines be edited to indicate the guidelines could change if community transmission of the coronavirus was higher.
After the hearing was over, Weingarten noted to the Washington Examiner that subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said he agreed with the changes to the guidelines as recommended by the union.
“We needed both teachers to be safe and kids to be safe,” Weingarten said. “It was clear by the end that even the chair agreed that the [changes] were right … that the changes in the CDC document were things he agreed with.”
Weingarten, who has led the AFT since 2008, accepted the invitation to testify before the committee voluntarily and said she “tried to tell the truth about how teachers wanted to be in school.”
“Teachers wanted to be in school; they knew that in school learning was important, but they needed it to be safe,” she said.
The testimony by the leader of the nation’s second-largest teachers union was not universally well received.
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Isabel Blank, the senior communications director of the union watchdog group Americans for Fair Treatment, said the hearing made the issue of the well-being of students feel like a partisan issue.
“As expected, the hearing showed clear differences along party lines that makes this issue feel like a partisan one, but it is not,” Blank said. “Questioning the leader of a teachers union that has been accused of not having teachers’ or students’ best interest at heart is a good thing for teachers who deserve the best representation from their union.”
