The two-case rule, the six-foot rule, the ongoing remote-teaching opt-out even for healthy young teachers who’ve had plenty of time to be vaccinated—these are all the product of teachers union muscle. And they have contributed to America having less in-person instruction over the past year than almost any other industrialized country, causing massive learning loss (particularly among poor and minority students), emotional isolation, and labor force dropouts by women.

All of which add to the brazenness of union leaders refusing to say whether they’ll support full reopening even by the next school year in September, by which time most everybody in the United States over the age of 12 will be vaccinated.

“I’ve seen inequalities all my life, and the last thing we can afford to do at the end of a pandemic that has already disproportionately impacted our Black and Brown and Indigenous communities, the last thing we need to do is to say we did not take the time to do studies in their environments, in their schools,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle told The Washington Post last week. “We still have lots of questions.”

Parents have lots of questions too, like How much is real estate in Florida?, and Why are we paying so much tax money for schools we can’t use?