Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ripped American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Monday after she declared her support for "amnesty" for decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic that closed schools and contributed to widespread learning loss.
Weingarten, who championed pandemic-related school closures and lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adopt teachers union-preferred language for reopening guidance, said she agreed with a controversial article in The Atlantic arguing for "pandemic amnesty."
"Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward," the article argued.
"I agree," Weingarten tweeted on Monday, which provoked a heated response from the Texas senator.
"Now Randi is saying, ‘please don’t blame me for shutting down schools for a year & hurting tens of millions of kids. Just forget about it.’ Hell NO," he said.
Weingarten also received a barrage of condemnation from others who blamed her for fighting to keep schools closed longer than they needed to be.
"You were 100% wrong on shutdowns and refuse to apologize for it. If you had any decency at all, you'd resign for presiding over the greatest American education failure of our lives," Outkick's Clay Travis said.
Actor Nick Searcy accused Weingarten of "ruin[ing] more children's lives than the Grinch."
Just the day before, Weingarten was called a "backpedaling hack" for tweeting that "everyone" suffered during the pandemic after a report revealed drastic declines in reading and math test scores.
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The Nation's Report Card said last week that math scores saw their largest decrease ever in 2022, while reading scores dropped to the lowest level since 1992 for fourth and eight graders nationwide.
"The bottom line is everyone suffered in the pandemic… because of the pandemic. The disruption was everywhere, and it was bad regardless of whether schools were remote or in person. We are focused now on the urgent need to help kids recover and thrive," Weingarten tweeted.
A September report from the Department of Education also showed a dramatic decline in test scores attributed to school closures and failed online learning.
"Average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020," the report said. "This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics."
Fox News' Hannah Grossman, Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
