Schools Must Open This Fall Says Teachers Union Leader

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And we turn now to the U.S., where another ramification from COVID, this time school closures, continues to impact millions of families.

Our next guest says schools must fully reopen this fall.

Randi Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers union. Here she is talking to Michel

Martin about how she plans to make it all happen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks, Bianna.

Randi Weingarten, thank you so much for joining us.

WEINGARTEN: It’s my honor to be with you.

MARTIN: So, you have made the announcement on behalf of the union and behalf of its members that school can open five — or should open five days

a week starting in fall full time, but that schools could also open now.

WEINGARTEN: Right.

MARTIN: So why this announcement now?

WEINGARTEN: So, there were a bunch of different reasons. But number one, we’re closing in on the end of the school — on a very nightmarish of a

school year. And we should be planning for next year.

And what we’re seeing is, because of what Joe Biden has done, frankly, something going back to April 2020, we asked the Trump administration to

do, which is to provide the real scientific guidance and the resources and the data, so that we could have the kind of school reopening that we knew

we needed, because kids need to be in school.

So, Biden did what Trump wouldn’t. And in the last few weeks, the school reopening that we had seen, the vaccines being the big game-changer, the

layered mitigation, both in school and outside, all of these things have really worked to change circumstances.

And so it was time to be unequivocal about it. And we had a meeting with all of our Executive Council. And so the speech is, frankly, undergirded by

a unanimous resolution of all the AFT vice presidents from all across the country.

So, we are one and all in and saying, we need in school learning, it needs to be full and robust. And, frankly, it also can’t be what it used to be,

that the normalcy we all crave is obviously vital, but we need to also recover, and we need to reimagine, so that we are really helping every

child thrive.

MARTIN: So, what does that look like? You’re saying it needs to be reimagined. What does that look like?

And I will just start with, should teachers be required to be vaccinated?

WEINGARTEN: Let me start with the vaccines.

Personally, I hope everybody gets a vaccine. I find — with every passing day, the science is clearer and clearer about how the vaccines help thwart

serious illness, and now seem to thwart transmission. And so they get — with every person who’s vaccinated, it gets us closer to herd immunity.

At the same time, we are in the midst of a period of time of great misinformation and great distortion of fact. And these are new vaccines

that are still under emergency use. So, for the time being, I think we need to make this volitional. We don’t even have vaccines yet — hopefully, they

are on the horizon — for our youngest children.

But so, for the time being, they should be volitional.

At the same time, almost 90 percent of our members in all the recent polling that we’ve done have either gotten the vaccine, want the vaccine,

and we just have to convince not only our members, but parents and those who are hesitant across the country that this is the way to normalcy and

the way to safety.

MARTIN: Should masks be worn?

WEINGARTEN: I think that the logistics of how to apply the new CDC guidance is going to be hard to figure out. And so, I think that Miguel

Cardona, the secretary of education, has already said that let’s keep everything as it for the end of the school year, which, you know, in some

places ends this week or next week and in other places ends in June.

But, you know, I think that for those who have been vaccinated, who want to take off their masks, that we are going to have — that that’s going to be

part of what we do in public education. Certainly, outside and, frankly, if the ventilation systems are working, I think inside. So, it’s really a

matter of how does this work and, you know, for, you know, high schools and middle schools. For elementary schools, since there is no vaccine yet,

probably elementary schools are going to have a lot of masks still.

So, there is just — there is a lot of complications. But what you’re hearing in my hesitation is that those logistics are going to have to be

worked out and I think we’re going to need some guardrails because we can’t have two things happen. We can’t have people who want to wear masks be

shamed and we can’t put educators in the position of being mask police.

And if vaccines are not required, and I don’t think they should be required of anyone yet, then you don’t want to be in a situation where the teacher

becomes the mask police and has to ask a child, are vaccinated, are you not? So, that’s why I think the guardrails will become important.

MARTIN: But haven’t teachers and sort of those — their representatives’ writ large kind of been the mask police all along? I mean, hasn’t that been

one of the arguments for keeping schools closed, it’s because there has been — compliance has been variable, you know, all over the country? I

mean, there are different levels of compliance in different places just like there were different levels of vaccine hesitancy in different places.

So, what would be different now? I guess I’m wondering is, is a nationwide standard really realistic?

WEINGARTEN: The safety guardrails were the way to reopen. If they were cleared and consistent from the CDC from the beginning, I think we would

have had less problems. And, yes, there was an issue about do you wear masks at the beginning, two months into it, you know, Dr. Fauci and the CDC

said, yes, wear masks. Of course, that created some issues. But the science was evolving on a very, very new, you know, coronavirus.

So, I think that what we — where we are right now is that mask and physical distancing, ventilation and washing your hands, were four of the

big things that were about layered mitigation and that layered mitigation prevented the virus transmission. So, what the CDC is now saying is, if you

are vaccinated, you don’t need a mask.

What does that really mean in schools? If we have the trust, we are going to be able to deal with all these issues and we will have some models that

we can then, you know, circulate. If there is no trust, there is going to be people who fear, you know, returning to school like we have right now

with so many black and brown parents.

So, the bottom line is we got to create the trust. The science creates the trust. Talking to each other creates the trust. And, frankly, being present

in school creates the trust.

MARTIN: You know, it kind of feels — forgive me. This is not a criticism. It kind of feels like this is still a little all over the place. So, I mean

—

WEINGARTEN: I agree.

MARTIN: So, it kind of leads me back to the first question, which is, if it’s all over the place, is this the time to make this announcement? Like

what’s motivating the announcement? It just seems as though there is still really isn’t consistent guidelines. There doesn’t seem to be consistent buy

in. I take your point that 90 percent — close to nine 90 percent of teachers say that they want to be vaccinated or will be but it still seems

to be that there isn’t consensus around what the right conditions are for kids to be back in school. So, it kind of leads me back to the first

question, why now?

WEINGARTEN: Well, the big issue — the big change, Michel, was what — there is two big changes. Number one, the vaccines have really been game

changers. And I think that once you see that for kids 12 and over, as well as for educators, and you see how efficacious they are, that has been a

huge game changer. And, number two, we have been in lots and lots and lots of schools that have now reopened or have been opened, part or full-time,

and with layered mitigation, the testing and the vaccines, they have been safe.

The curveball now is, what do you do with masks? And my hesitation in answering that is we are going to have to have some guardrails so that

teachers don’t become the mask police.

MARTIN: It’s interesting that there is a racial divide on this even now. On the one hand I think a lot of parents broadly, broadly think the kids

belong in school. But there is a divide about whether kids are actually going back to school.

I mean, the people who are most vocal about getting kids back in school full-time, at least from what I have seen, tends to be white, whereas

African American parents and, frankly, other parents of color, including in some surveys, Latino parents and Asian parents, are more likely to favor

some continuation of remote learning or even a hybrid model. Why do you think that is?

WEINGARTEN: I think there’s two things. Number one, it’s about who COVID affected. COVID really wreaked huge havoc in communities of color. And part

of that is because of pre-existing conditions. Part of that is because of who was front line — who had been front line workers.

And, number two, the schools in places that are high poverty or in places that are urban centers tend to be less equipped to deal with respiratory

issues like, you know, they have terrible ventilation systems. And then, number three, there is always an issue about we are keeping our kids of

color safe and welcome in a school.

So, it’s not just COVID, but it’s all of the other issues that have — you know, that have been in front of mind this year in terms of, are we going

to make sure that all of our kids are treated, you know, in a way that fits them, that lets them thrive. And so, there is a skepticism about whether or

not we are going to, you know, shortchange that, whether — or whether we are going to be able to do that. And you hear me keep saying we because we

all have to be all in here.

I am tired of people — you know, the teachers have done an incredible job this year in terms of going from in-person to remote to hybrid, often with

very inconsistent guidelines and things like that and still bearing a lot of the risk because they knew in-person learning was so important. And what

you see, frankly, in the polling that we just did is that there is a lot of appreciation, if you walk away from what you hear on Twitter, there is a

lot of appreciation for what teachers have done and what school districts have done throughout the country.

MARTIN: Now, critics of the union in general, your union in particular, argue that this is a calculated because the teachers union understands or

believes that parents have lost confidence. That there’s — that the political has taken place where people are less willing to defer to the

teacher’s union or the teachers and their representatives. What would you say to that?

WEINGARTEN: So, you know, it’s hard to actually respond to everything — to a complete total falsity and nullity. I mean, you know, at the end of

the day, teachers want what children need, and anyone who has watched me since last April has watched me over and over again talk about how the AFT

is trying to reopen schools and using safety as a vehicle to do that. And there is fact after fact after fact over the course of time to do this.

So, you know, at the end of the day, kids need to their teachers. Parents and teachers together are what ends up helping succeed. And teachers are

the most unionized occupation in the country because they knew that they needed a voice at work and they still need a voice at work. And so, I wish

for two and a half nanoseconds that the group of people that are denominated as the parent’s union would actually work with us instead of

immediately trying to dismiss anything that we do. It’s discouraging. It’s political.

But, you know, I’ll — you know, we’re going to do what we’re going to do. We are going to work with parents all throughout the country as we have

because we know that’s the alchemy, that’s the formula that helps kids thrive.

MARTIN: One of the things that a number of people have pointed out some different feels is that things had been revealed over the course of this

pandemic that we’re there anyway but were not necessarily visible, right? Like access to health care or, you know, lots of different things. Have you

learned something from this that you didn’t know, that you think was maybe there all along that just became visible to you because of what has been

happening this last year and a half?

WEINGARTEN: Number one, I’ve learned a lot more about gratitude and a lot more about being very grateful for, you know, the people around me. The

good — the amazing work. I’m sorry. I am going to tear up. The amazing work that teachers, that food service providers, that bus drivers, nurses,

grocery store workers, the — what is normally considered as the ordinary was the extraordinary in terms of how to fight this pandemic. And that I am

really grateful for.

Number two, communities that grew up, you know, remotely. Communities that normally were in-person that grew up remotely and checking on each other, I

am so grateful for that. Number three, all of the inequities that are there under the surface became glaringly visible. The lack of high-speed internet

and not being able to solve that. I mean, it seemed like that should have been a soluble problem.

In most places, you actually — you know, most urban settings were actually wired for internet. Why couldn’t we give, internet, high-speed internet to

every family in America that had school kids? Why couldn’t we solve that? The hunger issues. Why couldn’t we solve that? The issues of some

communities having decent health care and some communities not.

So, the inequities were glaring and it makes you want to use this moment as we are overcoming COVID, as we have this amazing science that has created

vaccines at a breakneck speed that have been able to help us, let’s use this to create a renaissance in public education.

MARTIN: Randi Weingarten, thank you so much for talking with us.

WEINGARTEN: You’re welcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: It’s so wonderful to have kids back into classroom in-person.

And finally, as students and teachers prepare to head back in-person, one veteran explorer is keen on getting back to his own classroom, and that is

the ocean. Robert Ballard is the world’s most famous oceanographer for tracking down the wrecks of the German battleship Bismarck, JFK’s PT-109

and, yes, the Titanic in 1985.

Not content to be known for discovering that rusty old boat, I am quoting his mother here, I wouldn’t say that’s a rusty old boat. He’s mother can

say that though. Ballard is ready to launch new expeditions. His new memoir is called “Into the Deep.” And he joins us now from New London,

Connecticut.

Great to have you on, Bob.

You know, no one like our mom who can bring us back down to earth, even if you were coming up to earth. But I would imagine how proud she was at that

discovery and here you are now, I have to say, I love that backdrop, by the way. You have conducted over 150 missions over 60 years. Why did you decide

now was the right time to write about it?

ROBERT BALLARD, AUTHOR, “INTO THE DEEP: A MEMOIR FROM THE MAN WHO FOUND TITANIC”: Well, you know, as you say, I am getting old. I’ve turned 79 in

a matter of days. But I’m just beginning. I am starting a major new program. But before doing that, I wanted to wrap this up. So, that’s why we

are doing the book and the television special that airs June 14th.

But we’re now been asked by our country to explore the 50 percent of our nation that lies beneath the sea. We have better maps of Mars than half of

the United States of America and I really want to launch into that project in a matter of days. Our ship goes back into the ocean and you can follow

us live starting around July 3rd, nautiluslive.org. So, it’s an amazing new program.

But I wanted to sort of wrap up the program I had been on for quite a while and also, as you know, in the book, I get a little more personal than I

have ever been to talk about the fact that I am dyslexic and how excited I am and how I view dyslexia as a marvelous gift. So, a percent time to do

it.

GOLODRYGA: Let the record show I did not call you old. You are anything but old. I wish I could have your energy. But let’s pick up on that

discovery of your dyslexia at the age of 72. You view that as a gift and actually, it helped you when you located the Titanic. Can you explain how?

BALLARD: Well, you know, dyslexics, we have a different way of processing information. But we’re very visual creatures. So, imagine a person that

really uses their eyes and their ability to create imagery in our mind. That’s our secret. We take in a lot of information and then we form a

three-dimensional image in our mind.

So, here we are we found the Titanic in 1985. We’re going back in 1986. We get in our submarine, we found it initially with robots. We are now heading

down. As soon as we hit the water, as you’ll see, everything started going wrong inside the submarine tracking. Navigation, sonar, everything. And the

pilot said, well, I don’t know where we are. And I said, I do. Keep going.

And we finally, after a two-and-a-half-hour descent, landed on the bottom 12,000 feet down, pitch black, look out the window and my pilot says, well,

smarty pants, where is the Titanic? I closed my eyes and I went there. And that’s where it was. How I did that, I didn’t know how I did it then, I now

know how I have that gift to do it. And it’s been so useful to me in all my explorations and I want other fellow kids in the world that have dyslexia

to embrace it as the wonderful gift that it is.

GOLODRYGA: It will be such an inspiration for anybody who is struggling with dyslexia to be able to hear this to story and know they can have

whatever career they want despite their dyslexia and maybe in spite of it, maybe because of it, they can achieve wonderful things.

BALLARD: Because of it.

GOLODRYGA: Right. And it’s interesting. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the Titanic because it’s actually something that has

been consuming your life for better or worse and there were many other discoveries, but what I found really interesting was the discovery that

happened to coincide with the Cold War. And you had been sent on a mission to help find some submarines and then in addition to that was when you

requested to also find the Titanic. So, this was some sort of top-secret mission that you can only reveal years later.

BALLARD: Well, that’s right. You know, I was a cub scout, boy scout, army officer, naval officer and I was always taught to tell the truth. And yet,

I was not allowed to tell who was really funding my expedition. I know the Pentagon was very nervous.

In fact, my commanding officer, Admiral Thunman, called me on the carpet and said, Commander Ballard, you are supposed to look for the Titanic, not

find it, because they are worried that they would realize I was actually exploring two nuclear submarines we lost during the Cold War, and in

particular, the USS Scorpion that was carrying nuclear weapons and they didn’t want to draw the Soviet’s attention to us. So, yes. But now I can

tell the truth and it’s a very liberating for a cub scout to do that.

GOLODRYGA: It is fantastic. Look, as somebody from the Soviet Union, it just gives me goosebumps to know that this was discovered in the midst of

the Cold War as we were trying to stave off the Soviets. The technology has improved 10-fold, if not more, since those days. You know, we spent a lot

of time talking and as we should, it’s fascinating, the space race and SpaceX and the new generation of the men in space and women in space.

You like to focus underground, underwater. And you talk about God may be being up in the heavens but you got the devil underneath. Can you tell us a

bit about the technology that has improved in terms of your expeditions that we don’t hear enough about?

BALLARD: Well, look at the room I am in right now. This is a command center that I can do everything I do at sea here. Just moments ago,

President Biden was just across the street at the Coast Guard Academy. And so, we just had 21-gun salute. So, you won’t be hearing that right now.

But from here, when my ship is at sea, I can choose where I want to physically be because this is really a spirit transporter. And this is

really portents to where we are headed in the future with electronic travel. This has been accelerated and acceptance, ironically, due to COVID-

19. How many people understand Zoom and understand the ability to go somewhere else at the speed of light. Wait until this comes into your home

and this is only $20,000, this is less than a car.

And not too long into the future, in fact, within the next 10 years or so, hertz will be renting robots in the Serengeti and you will go to the

Serengeti without having that carbon footprint you have now. You simply move your spirit, which moves at the speed of light and is indestructible.

So, what we’re doing now is going to be affecting the way all humans living in the future and, like I say, you just saw a big dose of it with COVID-19.

GOLODRYGA: And I’m glad you mentioned the human and the carbon footprint because we spent a lot of time on the program talking about climate change.

It impacts your job greatly. Can you give us —

BALLARD: Absolutely.

GOLODRYGA: — a sense of what you are most worried about and what can be done to help save the oceans as well?

BALLARD: Well, it’s, again, carbon footprint. Moving towards what we are now calling the blue economy of how we feed ourselves. Right now, we’re

largely dependent upon farmland. It’s rapidly disappearing as our population continues to grow. By the year 2050, we won’t have enough food

to feed the world as we are doing now. So, we have a real short time to solve this problem. And part of that is to declare peace with the earth,

not war.

Many of us in the earth sciences believe in a new theory called guy Gaia. And theory is that the earth itself is a creature and its codependent upon

life on the planet. And what I’m worried about is not whether the earth survives. It’s going to be around for billions of years.

I’m not worried about whether there will be life on earth. There will be — I am worried about whether the human race is going to be around. Because

right now, I think the earth has declared war on us, and unless we cut a deal with the earth, and that means handle our expansive population, handle

our carbon footprint, the earth will eliminate us.

And so, there is no plan B for the human race. We are not escaping planet earth. We are not going to live on Mars. We don’t have time. We have to

come to peace with our planet within the next generation.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. It’s, you know, been able to withstand our wear and tear for thousands of years, if not more. And so, this is a really important

point to make right now. The earth may be here, but we’ve got to make peace in terms of living, you know, side by side with the earth in a healthy way

for generations to come.

We know about your most famous expeditions. Is there one that holds a more special place to your heart that we haven’t heard yet that you talk about

in the book?

BALLARD: Well, it’s what my mom said when she said, son — I am the first of 13 generations to go to college in my family. And my brother and I both

secured PhDs. And like you say, as you read the book at the beginning, my mom calls me after I did the talk shows and said, that was nice, son, but

now they are only going to remember you for that rusty old boat because you have done some really amazing — these guys right over here, the discovery

of a whole new life system was my greatest discovery in 1977 when we discovered an ecosystem that lives not off the energy of the sun, as we

have been taught in biology books, but literally lives off the energy of the earth itself through a process we call chemosynthesis.

This now tells us that we are not alone in the universe. The extremophiles supporting this life system can survive in extremely hash be environments.

NASA is on its way to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter which have larger oceans. The ocean of Enceladus in Saturn and Europa in Jupiter has more

water on those moons than we have here. And we expect to find life living in those oceans within the next few decades.

So, I am hoping NASA finally gets the job done, finds life, but it’s not going to be able to replace what we have here on earth. There is no plan B

for the human race. It’s earth.

GOLODRYGA: Well, look, the beauty of it is that you’ve passed this on to another generation, your daughter also loves expeditions and is in the

business with you. So, perhaps this is something she’s going to be doing as well. I know that your next mission now is trying to find and solve the

mystery of Amelia Earhart.

BALLARD: Absolutely.

GOLODRYGA: What’s the likelihood that that’s going to happen in the last 90 seconds we have with you?

BALLARD: Oh, we are going after it again. We — there’s only two options. We did the first one because we only could go to 12,000 feet and we

couldn’t get to the deep depth. We are headed to Howland Island where the water depth is 15,000 feet and we now have a whole new set of toys that can

do that. Autonomous vehicles that can go down there like a pack of dogs, and we are going to find her.

GOLODRYGA: Well, I have zero doubt that you will accomplish that mission. What a great job to have as an explorer. I can see the passion in your

eyes, in your face. I know this must have been a tough year on lockdown for you not to be able to do what you love out there. But like we said, you’re

79 years young. You have many more expeditions ahead of you and we will continue to follow them

Congratulations on the book. We appreciate it.

BALLARD: Thank you very much.

GOLODRYGA: Talk to you soon.

And that is it for now. And you can catch us online and on our podcast casts and across social media.