Newly-released documents suggest that one of the country’s most powerful teachers’ unions shaped Biden administration policies on the reopening of schools, despite President Joe Biden’s pledge to “follow the science” on pandemic policy.
The documents, obtained by the conservative group Americans for Public Trust through a Freedom of Information Act request, were reported Saturday by the New York Post. They show the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) lobbying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — and succeeding in having some of their recommendations adopted.
The teachers’ unions had long opposed a rapid reopening of schools, even when science said there was no significant risk. The Los Angeles teachers’ union also claimed that a statewide school reopening plan would reinforce “structural racism.”
The Post reported:
The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show.
