Colorado’s academic vital signs plummeted amid COVID, leaving K-12 learning on life support. As standardized test scores released last fall made clear, student achievement went into a nosedive after schools went online in spring 2020. And that’s not to mention how “remote” learning stunted kids’ social and emotional development.

With schoolchildren now mostly back in class this academic year – alongside a pandemic that has become much more manageable – the priority must be to recover lost ground. Our public schools need champions who will marshal the resources and promote the policies needed to repair the damage done to our kids by their exile. Stakeholders in state government as well as local school districts, along with the business community and parents, must commit anew to revitalizing our schools so that especially Colorado’s neediest and most at-risk kids have a fighting chance to get on track. In other words, our schools need real leadership.

But you can count out Colorado’s teacher unions. Their leaders are hiding under their desks.

The state’s largest teachers union, the Colorado Education Association, and its local affiliates dug in their heels to keep schools largely closed during the 2020-21 academic year. After public outcry forced schools to reopen, the unions dragged their feet almost every step of the way. Somehow, schools never were deemed “safe” enough by union chiefs – despite science and statistics pointing to the minimal risk to kids of returning to class. And despite science and statistics pointing to the serious harm being done to kids by closed schools.

With the latest surge in what appears to be the least threatening variant of COVID, unions incredibly are calling for a return to remote learning once more. Never mind that, unlike a year or more ago in the depth of the pandemic, most faculty and staff now are vaccinated. Never mind, as well, that most kids never were in harm’s way since the pandemic began.

Last week, as reported by education news service Chalkbeat, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association sent a letter to the state’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools, demanding the district send kids home and go online for a week. Were the district to comply, a week easily could turn into a month or a semester if experience is any guide. And if the district doesn’t give in, the union’s letter lists a slate of other demands, all purportedly aimed at countering COVID, that amount to gratuitous and costly overkill.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero is holding his ground in opposing a districtwide shutdown. Of course, there are no guarantees in the hardball politics unions play.

Perhaps Marrero can accept as consolation that he at least doesn’t have to deal with the teachers union in Chicago, where school were closed all last week after the union’s teachers refused to report to work.

It should go without saying by now that remote learning is pointless in the face of COVID and harmful to kids. The real takeaway for parents from this latest round of developments is that unions consistently oppose what’s best for our children.

The late labor organizer and teachers union boss Albert Shanker reputedly once declared, decades ago, “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” At least, back then, the unions were more forthright about what mattered most to them.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board