Prolonged school closures and remote learning during the pandemic had detrimental effects on students’ aptitude in core subjects, including math and English. On “Washington Journal,” a Minnesota caller noted the “negative impact” of the closures and asked Weingarten about her involvement in “advocating” for them.
“I believe that COVID closures did hurt kids. And I have said that over and over again,” Weingarten responded. “And in April of 2020, we were the first ones to actually put out a report about how to reopen schools and reopen them safely and try to make schools the priority … And so, you know, regardless of whether people put words in my mouth or not, if you look at the evidence, we actually tried. What we wanted to do — and nobody knew very much about anything — is we wanted people to be safe.”
