C-SPAN callers grill Randi Weingarten on schools, sound off on 'pathetic' union influence

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Media top headlines May 19

President Biden joking about running over a reporter and more round out today's top media headlines.

Peeved parents called into C-SPAN on Wednesday to grill American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on her union's apparent slow-walking of getting kids back in the classroom as more Americans get their coronavirus vaccines, as well as the AFT's influence on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for schools.

Communication between the AFT and the CDC revealed the latter was pressured to change some language on the reopening of schools. In one provision, the CDC said that schools could open their doors regardless of community transmission rate, but changed the language at the urging of the union. The AFT was heavily criticized for pressuring the CDC, but Weingarten pushed back and said her union simply tried to get the CDC's attention on the potential COVID-19 variants that were "around the corner," in India and elsewhere, and asked them to "rethink" the guidelines.

"This is normal rulemaking, frankly," she said in defense.

$1 MILLION AD CAMPAIGN ACCUSES BIDEN OF WORKING WITH DARK MONEY, TEACHERS UNIONS, TO KEEP SCHOOLS CLOSED

Weingarten has lashed out at outlets that have questioned her commitment to reopen schools, calling a New York Post report a "hit piece" and a recent Wall Street Journal editorial "bulls---" and part of the "misinformation campaign." 

"The truth is, I have been trying, and many in my union have been trying to reopen schools for in-person instruction, very fulsomely, for months and months and months now," she claimed on C-SPAN. She said she's looking forward to "reimagine education" to "spark" students' passion. 

Many C-SPAN callers weren't buying it.

"Ms. Weingarten, I would like to ask why you think a pandemic is a reason to reimagine our education?" one parent asked. "Some basics would be nice. The public schools have failed these children before on the education basis, let alone all this social reeducation." 

"The part that I don't understand is, how come the parochial schools and the private schools could navigate their way through this scenario, but the public schools didn't seem to be able to manage that?" another parent asked. To that caller's point, Weingarten said they need "more data" to determine how those schools safely and successfully reopened.

One C-SPAN caller who seemed to be the boldest was a grandfather who pointedly asked Weingarten how she could defend a union that creates "lazy" people. He called the unions' influence "pathetic."

"I mean no disrespect to you but … now the union creates lazy, ineffective people and it also creates children that have no education … it is pathetic how the teachers union and the government has failed our children," he said. "I don't see how you could sit up there and defend it."

"I'm not saying there are things we should do that are better," Weingarten admitted. But she said that research shows, "where there's unions, there are better wages, where there's unions, there are better kind of solutions." She insisted that she and her union and trying to "meet the aspirations of all kids."

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Politico came under fire this week for attempting to do cleanup on the AFT's dragging its feet on schools, writing, "The Biden administration and teachers unions are mounting a campaign to return American children to classrooms five days a week."

"It's just so offensive," Ruthless co-host Michael Duncan reacted. "I mean singularly, these teachers unions have been responsible for keeping our kids out of the classroom against the science for more than six months now because these people like [American Federation of Teachers president] Randi Weingarten have just gaslit us all day and extort the American taxpayer being like, ‘Oh, you know, we need $122 billion in Biden’s COVID bill' to these schools, $67 billion in 2020 through the CARES Act, and the other coronavirus bill."

Ruthless co-host Josh Holmes agreed it was "one of the most remarkable revisionist histories of all time."