>> Continued From the Previous Page <<
COVID Playbook Resurfaces: Learning Loss Revisited
Stefano Forte of 1776 Project PAC didn’t hold back in his assessment.
“Minnesota’s Teachers Unions did generational damage to the state’s children when they demanded schools be locked down for prolonged periods during COVID,” Forte said.
“Once again, the teachers union is acting against the interest of children and showing themselves as being nothing more than a political arm of the Democrat Party.”
Minnesota students still struggle to recover from pandemic-era closures. According to August 2025 test scores, only 43% of students meet grade-level expectations in math, and 48% in reading—down 10 percentage points from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Research confirms what parents have long feared: remote learning caused massive setbacks, with students losing between one-third and one-half of a year in reading and up to a full year in math. The hardest-hit students were those whose schools stayed closed the longest—precisely the policies unions demanded.
Political Activism Trumps Child Safety
Paul Runko of Defending Education called out the real motive behind the closures:
“Nearly six years after the start of the COVID pandemic, American families know that school closures and mass remote learning were a complete disaster for kids; academically, socially, emotionally, and mentally,” Runko said.
“Every day out of the classroom is a day students can’t get back. These decisions aren’t being made for children, they’re being made for adults, often to score political points or to accommodate priorities that have nothing to do with student success.”
Despite claims of safety concerns, the ICE shooting posed no direct threat to schools across the metro area. Yet teachers unions saw an opportunity to organize protests against Trump-era immigration enforcement. Schools were closed, students sent home, and teachers hit the streets—turning classrooms into political staging grounds.
Rhyen Staley of Defending Education warned that far-left ideology is driving these decisions.
“What is happening with Minnesota schools is a feature, not a bug, of the current dominant ideology permeating Colleges of Education and the education system writ large,” Staley said.
“Too many teachers are being trained to be far-left social justice activists to the detriment of the children they are hired to serve.”
History Repeats: Unions Prioritize Politics Over Kids
Minnesota parents have seen this play before. During COVID, unions lobbied the CDC for extended school closures while private schools reopened safely. Years of lost learning, declining test scores, and disrupted social development were all sidelined in favor of union priorities.
Now, under a different pretext, the same unions are repeating the playbook: close schools, claim safety concerns, and mobilize teachers for political causes. Minnesota students once again face the consequences of adult agendas, proving that these unions have learned nothing from the past.
Children deserve education, not politics. Yet, in Minnesota, the teachers unions’ pattern is clear: when politics calls, classrooms suffer.
