President Joe Biden's COVID-19 relief bill contains $160 billion for schools but it should not be approved unless there is a condition that the nation's classrooms are reopened, and Biden himself must choose between science and the teachers unions, Sen. John Cornyn said Thursday.
"This refusal on the part of some of the teachers unions to return is not about the kids, it is about them," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "It is really stoking fear where we should follow the science."
Biden could be sending a "very important message" about schools, but he will have to make a choice between science and the unions, and so far, the unions are winning, said Cornyn.
He added that money in the relief bill for schools "ought to be on the condition that they safely reopen. We know how to do that."
Meanwhile, public schools are "hemorrhaging students" even though they're getting money that should be contingent on in-person classes, and without schools being open, there will be a push for school choice, said Cornyn.
"People are finding that public schools unfortunately no longer always meet the necessity," said Cornyn. "Private schools and school choice, charter schools definitely have a place in the mix."
Public schools, though, are critical to "our well-informed and educated democracy," said Cornyn, but many are failing students by not educating them.
"We're also missing out in a global competition where we know who our competitors are," he said. "This is a failure on many levels. I think that's why you are seeing public schools hemorrhaging students to private schools that are somehow amazingly able to safely reopen and educate in person."
Cornyn also said he thinks teachers unions are opposing a return to school both because of "unrealistic fear" and because there is no penalty for staying out of classes.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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