Secretary Mayorkas appoints teachers’ union boss responsible for lockdowns to DHS safety committee

The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security appointed American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten to a DHS school safety committee, outraging critics.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appointed Weingarten to the 30-member Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council (HSAPC), which is supposed to make “independent, strategic, timely, specific, and actionable recommendations” to DHS about school safety issues.

Weingarten made headlines recently when she appeared before a House committee investigating her union’s role with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in promoting school closures during COVID-19, which had devastating impacts on student learning.

Weingarten, who repeatedly downplayed her push to keep schools closed, admitted in her testimony that AFT made recommendations on COVID-19 lockdowns for schools, which were, in part, political recommendations, and not science-based. 

“Ms. Weingarten confirmed that the CDC accepted two recommendations from her organization and conceded that political activism is an essential part of AFT’s mission,” said the House Oversight committee about AFT’s role in the lockdowns. “The Select Subcommittee will use Ms. Weingarten’s testimony to further their investigation into prolonged school closures and work to ensure children never again suffer from these unscientific policy decisions.” 

Critics say that Weingarten’s input in her new DHS role won’t be “independent,” and that the appointment sends the wrong message about the priorities of the Biden administration.   

“Randi Weingarten chose appeasing teacher unions over getting students back in the classroom during the pandemic,” tweeted Rep. Ben Cline, a Virginia Republican. “Now, math and reading scores for the Nation’s 13-year-olds are at the worst decline in decades. Why is DHS rewarding bad policy?” 

Florida’s Republican Sen. Rick Scott agreed.  

“@rweingarten is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety,” Scott tweeted.  

The appointment comes at a particularly inopportune moment for Weingarten and Mayorkas, as new data show the long-lasting damage to U.S. K-12 students, because of COVID-19 lockdowns, is worse than previously reported.  

The latest scores from the National Center for Education Statistics – known as the Nation’s Report Card – indicated math scores have reached their lowest rate since 1990 while reading scores dipped to the lowest since 2004, continuing the downward trend since the pandemic began in 2020, reported Fox News.  

The Biden administration has faced criticism that it’s too cozy with the education establishment and too dismissive of parental rights, politicizing school safety to score political points with education bureaucrats, like the AFT.  

U.S. House Judiciary chair, Rep. Jim Jordan, has been investigating Biden’s use of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to go after parents who have protested to school boards about neglecting academics in favor of progressive, woke policies and curriculum.  

Jordan accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of trying to “intimidate parents into silence via the threat of federal agents coming to their homes to ‘investigate’ their attempts to effectively participate in and freely discuss the education of their children.”