Democrats side with campaign benefactors over Kansas students
TOPEKA, KS – Democrats from Joe Biden to Laura Kelly to Sharice Davids continue to pick teachers’ unions over students when it comes to the issue of re-opening schools.
The Biden campaign repeatedly claimed throughout the 2020 election they would “follow the science” in responding to this pandemic. Well, the science is clear according to the administration’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Fauci – we can safely re-open schools without having to wait for every single teacher in America to be vaccinated.
All the Biden Administration can seem to say on this important topic is “teachers should be a priority” for the vaccine.
No one disagrees with this. And it doesn’t provide any clarity on the Administration’s position on whether kids should be back in school.
We know that remote learning has been devastating for children, particularly disadvantaged students. We know that it’s been devastating for our economy, with parents forced to stay home with their children instead of going back to work.
Meanwhile, Sharice Davids has been silent on this issue. Perhaps it’s because teachers’ unions wrote her more than $20,000 in checks last election cycle alone.
Teachers’ unions around the country have been discarding science, setting their own arbitrary benchmarks for in-person schooling, and then moving goalposts even when those benchmarks are cleared.
It’s time for the Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress like Sharice Davids to put the best interest of our students ahead of special interest groups bankrolling their campaigns.
It’s time for Laura Kelly, who never put forth a workable plan to open schools in the first place back in July, to figure out how to get every Kansas student back in school.
Thankfully, under the leadership of Senate President Ty Masterson, Republicans in the Kansas Legislature are fighting for our students and parents and following the science. Under a new bill introduced Friday by Masterson, Kansas schools would be required to offer full, in-person instruction starting March 26.
This bill should receive unanimous support, and Democrats should stop playing politics with our children’s education.
