In all my time on this earth, I’ve never witnessed a more dramatic fall of credibility among a certain sector of the economy than what we’ve seen with teachers over the last years. Over the course of the COVID pandemic, we’ve gone from almost universal praise of teachers as essential workers to a vast number of parents who have lost their patience.

Worse, every bit of the downfall was self-inflicted. Teachers’ unions have abused the power they never should have had in the first place, making impossible demands while leaving students to flounder. Figures like Randi Weingarten have led the way, constantly moving the goalposts to ensure that schools they have control over remain closed.

With summer hitting and the pandemic being essentially over (even if some never want to let go), it would have been fair to assume that a return to normal in the fall was imminent. Of course, the teachers’ unions have other plans.

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— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) July 1, 2021

These people never want to work again. That’s the only logical conclusion that can be drawn at this point.

To begin with, there is no vaccine for students under 12, and there may not be one approved by the fall. So how exactly can everyone be vaccinated before returning to in-person learning? Secondly, why would testing be necessary after everyone is vaccinated, which is their first demand? Lastly, if you could get everyone vaccinated and have a testing regime for every single school, why would masks and social distancing be necessary? Does the vaccine work or not in the NEA’s eyes?

Absolutely none of what is being pushed here is based on science. Forced vaccinations of children are not medically necessary given their lack of vulnerability to the disease. If teachers are all vaccinated, concerns about any spread in schools are thus neutralized. That is literally the only stipulation that makes any sense, and even then, real-world data (i.e. schools being open across the South all last year without major outbreaks) shows even that is overkill.

But these teachers’ unions do not care. They want your children to live in a prison, unable to return to normal, in order to make irrational, science-denying adults feel better about their laziness.

I will make a caveat here. Not all school districts are under the thumb of these unions. Schools in many red states (and red areas of some blue states) did open last year for most of the school year. Those teachers woke up every morning and did their jobs. They are not the target of this article.

Regardless, it’s time for parents to act accordingly to the selfish hysteria being propagated by these unions. If you live in a district that will not educate your kids in person without nonsensical, draconian restrictions, you have some options. There’s never been a better time to home-school or to send your children to private school. If you can’t afford that, work with and support groups that are pushing individual funding for students, not schools. Choice in education is the future, and it’s the only way to stop the tyranny of these teachers’ unions.