There are still millions of children around the country who haven’t seen the inside of the school since March of 2020, despite the nearly zero chance of fatality from COVID.

Sure, there are two sides of this: student health and teacher/staff health. As usual with a union set up, it’s all or nothing. Despite the number of teachers who want to be in the classroom teaching, and I know some of them personally, the union leadership is holding our students hostage.

The union is refusing to return to work until their safety is guaranteed (which, as an aside, can never be guaranteed for anyone). While they await the return they claim to be so excited about, various union leadership around the country are sending their kids to in-person private schools, taking zoom calls from island vacation spots (where there’s apparently no danger of infection), and all of the usual hypocrisy you’d expect from Democrat leadership.

My question is, why are we allowing ourselves to be held hostage by these people?

The teacher’s union is arguably the most institutionally racist organizations in the country (when it comes to systemic racism, look no further) as they oppose school choice and other opportunities that would help minorities, and all students, in less affluent areas. They’re the single greatest impediment to a decent education we know in this country.

Why aren’t states, school districts, and localities simply hiring teachers who want to go back to work as individual employees or contractors and getting the school back up and running?

This is the perfect time to destroy the union. Like with so many unions, the wishes of the union workers are the last thing union representation is considering. Like everything else, the union has been entirely politicized and is simply part of the greater Democrat money-laundering scheme.

Principals across the country can finally take control of their schools and run them like a real business. Hire the best teachers they can afford. Pay the best ones the most money. Assess their performance (do the kids learn, are they engaged, do they want to be there), and keep the best ones.

The schools would win. The parents would win. And the students would most definitely win.

Granted, this is far more complicated than I’m making it sound. But even if it can’t be quickly done, conservative leadership should be all over this, explaining to people the benefits of breaking the union.

This is also an opportunity to familiarize the public with the concept of funding the students and not the schools. This is the idea that parents get education money they can spend anywhere they choose. Instead of a public school just getting a block of money, they would only get the money given to the student if the student chooses to attend that school.

Conservatives need to develop an effective marketing apparatus and be aggressively and constantly on offense. This is just one of the examples of issues they need to champion, and the time to start is 30 years ago.