Who Is Pushing For School Shutdowns?

Over fifty percent of our nation’s parents want schools to reopen for in-class instruction. Yet, schools remain closed. Why?

According to a new study conducted by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a teacher union in a school district is the primary factor in determining whether or not a school will go to virtual learning. With over three million members, the largest union in the United States is the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA is the puppeteer behind when and how schools will or will not reopen. What does the NEA have to gain by keeping schools closed? The best place to find their motives is the NEA’s 2020 Playbook for Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration. Included in the “Playbook” is the comprehensive socialist/communist agenda the NEA intends to pursue over the next four years. Here we will only deal with two of the requests in the Playbook.

It’s All About The Money

Besides power, the NEA wants money and lots of it. Schools currently receive money for COVID relief, but the NEA is seeking more for the future. With COVID, the NEA can demand more money for education, with no promise of higher performance scores, because no one expects grades to go up during the COVID disruption.

How much money do they want? They are requesting $200 billion for COVID relief. This amount is in excess of the $739 billion ($14,439 per student) the U.S. currently spends on K-12 education. The request for extra money is made even though students are not now being educated adequately in many of the nation’s largest school districts.

The NEA powers know they stand a chance of extra funds as presidential candidate Biden has made it clear that he will be a friend of the NEA.

It’s About Long Term Strategies To Revise Education

A recent article published on the NEA website states that any reopening model has to ensure students and staff’s health and safety and prioritize long-term strategies on student learning and educational equity. With that said, it is no surprise that included in the NEA Playbook is a request for more money to develop virtual learning, the method that has been a dismal failure during the pandemic.

The devastating results of distance learning due to closings may only be evaluated as school districts disclose internal data, much like the new study recently released from Fairfax County, Va. Public Schools Office of Research and Strategic Improvement. The study suggests middle and high school students see less academic success due to online learning. The percentage of students with two or more F marks, for example, increased 83% from 6% to 11% in the first quarter of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the first quarter of the 2019-2020 school year. Hispanic children and children of color ranked at the bottom of the charts. While the study is geographically specific to Fairfax, the data is applicable to other districts.

To keep the public from knowing how badly distance learning is failing our students, the NEA proposes doing away with standardized testing, not just during the pandemic but permanently. The San Diego school district has already done away with standardized and comprehensive testing, and others are following their example. Schools often receive a letter grade based on standardized test scores, which is usually made public. Without those scores, taxpayers have no way of knowing if academics are improving or diminishing.

The fact that students are not performing well with virtual learning is not the NEA’s major concern. The future, according to them, is virtual learning.

The NEA is a deep, deep state operative. They hold a position Karl Marx describes in the Communist Manifesto when he said, The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. The NEA does not want the trouble and expense of founding and running schools, but they see and perform their role as an influencer over education. Thereby they get their way and change society using taxpayer money to support schools they influence to bring about the demise of this nation by converting its children to communism.

Now is the time to pray for NEA resources to dry up, and their influence brought to nothing.

About the Author: Nancy Huff is an educator with a mission to equip believers to pray strategically for the Cultural Mountain of Education. She has authored Taking the Mountain of Education: A Strategic Prayer Guide to Transform America’s Schools. She leads prayer groups to pray at key educational locations across the US. Currently, Nancy serves as the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network (HAPN) Lead Prayer Coordinator for the Mountain of Education. For additional information go to: https://takingthemountainofeducation.com/author/nancyahuff/ (Photo Credit: Unsplash.)

Reprint permission from Intercessors for America. www.ifa.org