L.A. Teachers Union Leader: There s No Such Thing As Learning Loss Reason.com

The head of United Teachers Los Angeles the city’s teachers union thinks that pandemic-related learning losses are a myth and that the thousands of students who slogged through virtual school last year are doing just fine.

“There’s no such thing as learning loss,” Cecily Myart-Cruz told Los Angeles magazine in a recent interview.

Myart-Cruz did acknowledge that students’ achievements in mathematics, for instance, might have been harmed by virtual learning, but she asserted that the experience of surviving 2020 2021 somehow makes up for this.

“Our kids didn’t lose anything,” she said. “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”

Throughout the interview, Myart-Cruz acts as though she is trying to confirm the worst fears of conservative parents who worry that public educators are trying to turn their children into progressive activists. The union boss brazenly discusses her plans to politicize everything having to do with the classroom experience and to fight school reopenings unless accompanied by changes that she claims will address systemic racism. Last year, she opposed making teachers teach virtually for more than four hours each day, but also turned down a deal to let schools reopen in exchange for $2 billion in extra funding. And she dares anyone to try to oppose her.

“You can recall the governor,” she said. “You can recall the school board. But how are you going to recall me?”

via reason.com

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