American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is sounding the alarm about the decade-long decline in student test scores, pointing to screens and devices as a culprit. She’s calling it a “call to action.”
She left out the part about how she helped cause the problem in the first place.
For two years during the COVID pandemic, Weingarten and the AFT fought aggressively to keep schools closed. In July 2020, as the Trump administration urged schools to reopen, Weingarten called the push “reckless,” “callous,” and “cruel,” and threatened the possibility of safety strikes.
Internal emails later released by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee showed the AFT had access to draft guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control before it was made public, as well as proposed specific language that could trigger renewed closures.
Research published afterward confirmed what was already evident: Districts with stronger teachers unions were significantly less likely to reopen for in-person instruction, even after controlling for local COVID conditions.
So kids stayed home. They got on computer screens and stayed there for two years, cut off from teachers, friends, and anything resembling a normal childhood.
The consequences were not abstract. The National Assessment of Educational Progress recorded the largest declines in math and reading scores in its history. Reading results dropped to levels not seen since the early 1990s.
Researchers documented surging rates of anxiety, depression, and social developmental delays among children who spent critical years in isolation. The damage, experts say, will take a generation to undo.
In her book published last fall, Weingarten wrote that she “…led the AFT in developing a concrete plan to reopen schools as quickly and safely as possible.” That’s a remarkable claim given the documented record of what her union actually did.
Weingarten told Congress in 2023 there were “… things we really didn’t get right,” including the impact of prolonged closures. That acknowledgment was notable, but what followed it wasn’t accountability. It was a pivot.
The same union that lobbied to keep students off school grounds is now positioning itself as a champion of children’s well-being, pointing an accusing finger at Silicon Valley while the learning-loss data keeps compounding.
The financial record makes that positioning even harder to stomach. A recent analysis of National Education Association and AFT federal disclosures by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Gevura Fund – of which Tina Snider is president – found America’s two largest teachers unions spend roughly $4 on political activities for every dollar spent on direct member representation.
The NEA alone reported more than $51.7 million in political spending in its most recent filing, plus another $123 million in contributions and grants, compared to less than $46 million on the collective bargaining its members thought they were paying for.
Meanwhile, teacher pay in real terms has barely moved in 50 years. The gap between what teachers earn and what comparably educated professionals earn hit a record 26.9% in 2024.
Small wonder NEA membership has fallen by nearly 400,000 since its peak, even as dues have increased every single year.
The union is shrinking, teachers are falling further behind their peers economically, and the students those teachers serve are still recovering from two years of lost learning.
That’s the actual record, and it’s a shameful one.
The test scores didn’t fall because of TikTok. They fell because millions of kids spent two years at home on screens, isolated from the teachers and classrooms Weingarten claims to champion.
She knows who fought to keep them there. So do the parents still watching their kids catch up.
