One of the four or five greatest calamities in American history was the shutting down of the schools for almost a year and a half in many cities and states. How did this tragedy happen?

Liberal Atlantic writer Franklin Foer’s new book reports that it was not only CDC director Rochelle Walensky who gave union president Randi Weingarten veto power to keep schools closed month after month, but President Biden personally gave her the green light too.

“For the sake of avoiding conflict, especially conflict with an ally, the Biden administration trimmed its goal of returning kids to school to a fraction of what had been promised on the campaign trail,” Foer wrote.

Weingarten was invited to meet with First Lady Jill Biden at the White House and, according to Foer, President Biden personally called her seven days later to say: “I am not abandoning you on schools. I want you to know that.”

Let us translate the mendacity of what he was telling the union boss: I’m not abandoning the unions; I’m abandoning millions of American kids. An entire generation of kids paid the price in lost learning and emotional isolation and depression. Oh, and taxpayers paid $150 billion for schools whose doors were locked shut.

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