Teacher Unions & Influence Spending

Chrissy Clark:

Democrats are taking the side of the Chicago Teachers Union as it vows to strike. City leadership ordered teachers to return to classroom learning and the ongoing feud is highlighting the burgeoning divide between teacher unions — who wish to keep schools closed — and school administrators — who wish to safely reopen using mitigation strategies.

The White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, is among the most notable Democrats to take the side of the teacher unions that refuse to return to in-person learning. 

The unions and the Biden administration claim that reopening schools is unsafe, despite evidence that in-school transmission of COVID-19 is extremely rare. A peer-reviewed study from the American Academy of Pediatrics found that “schools can stay open safely in communities with widespread community transmission.” Other studies have also indicated that schools are not driving coronavirus infections. 

Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also calls on schools to reopen for in-person learning “as safely and quickly as possible.” Dr. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly echoed the CDC guidelines to reopen schools, as well.  

Despite Democrats’ calls for “science” to drive policy, there appears to be another force driving their policy goals — political donations from teacher unions. Here are the Democrats who backed efforts to keep schools closed while taking thousands from teacher unions in the 2020 election cycle: 

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

Molly Beck and Madeline Heim:

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.   

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state. 

Channel3000:

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.