After Spending Months Attacking Teachers, Starting Up a “Tip Line” to Harass Them, Creating a Climate of Fear, etc., Youngkin Suddenly Is Like, “Whoa, There’s a Teacher Shortage!” LOL

See below for video, and a few reactions, to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s speech a few minutes ago, addressing “teacher shortages and learning loss across the Commonwealth.” In the comments section of his Facebook live stream, Susan Ahern Marusco has some great responses to Youngkin’s blather, including:

• “How can someone say so much w/ out saying anything substantive besides a teacher raise . Lab schools just a start on Youngkin’s path to privatize Va schools and defund public education”
• “Teachers have left ‘cause you wanted to put their safety at risk w/ no masks during a global pandemic, and you created a tip line for people to rat out teachers who teach racial history you don’t seem to want taught (you call that history divisive) . Teachers are underpaid and disrespected.“

For more on why teachers are leaving – or thinking about leaving – their profession, see the comments by Gov. Ralph Northam’s Secretary of Education, Atif Qarni, who said:

• Youngkin “doesn’t give a damn about how teachers are impacted”
• Youngkin “create[d] this very McCarthy-like atmosphere. It’s really suffocating. I have so many teacher friends, especially in history and social studies, who were really concerned that when the tip line went up is that look, am I going to say something incorrect that I might get fired and so forth?”
• “Teachers do not feel…they said that they felt protected under Governor Northam’s leadership, they felt protected when I was there…[Now] they feel like there’s an attack on education, an attack on them. They’re having serious conversations with their significant others about leaving the profession.”
• It’s not just about salary increases, I think that’s a big component of it. But it’s also about the culture of education. And right now the biggest problem that collectively a lot of teachers have is that they feel like they’re under attack and they don’t want to teach in a toxic environment, and Youngkin has created that environment…They hate the Youngkin administration. I have not heard a single educator – and I mean my educator friends are from both political parties – say anything positive about Youngkin, because they’re truly truly truly angry and worried.

So who are you going to believe? People who actually know what they’re talking about, including teachers themselves, or lying liar Youngkin?

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