School-aged children have long been unwitting pawns in the game of politics. After all, if you can influence the thinking of impressionable children, you can control the culture. Teachers unions are very aware of this fact and have undue influence over spreading pertinent culture issues with a leftist bent.

Back on May 13, when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was issuing guidance for vaccinated Americans and masking, the National Education Association (NEA) sent a threatening email criticizing the CDC for not specifically outlining guidelines for school safety and warning that it would make its scathing remarks public.

When the CDC updated its guidelines on May 14 to include the masking guidance that the NEA wanted, the teachers unions were still not satisfied. In emails obtained by Fox News, the leaders of the CDC, NEA, and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) colluded to enforce tighter mask mandates regardless of vaccination status for students, teachers, and school staff. On May 15, the CDC caved to the teachers unions.

This is not the first time this year that the teachers unions have manipulated the CDC for their own agenda. The AFT lobbied and won the delay of schools going back to in-person learning. At the time, it was a big controversy because it was contrary to the available science.

After all this, Randi Weingarten, the manipulative president of the AFT, is pushing the idea that conservatives are using kids and schools as a battleground for the culture wars.

In her own words: “Normally, our kids have been off-limits. We had tension over Common Core. There was tension over other issues. But in modern history, since the huge desegregation battles, kids have been off-limits. Now, they are the battlefield.”

This is outrageous chutzpah. Notice how Weingarten neglects to mention tensions over No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration’s education policy. This dishonest statement would almost come off as naivety except that she has been around teachers unions and education policy professionally since the mid-1980s. Leftists have always used kids in the culture wars, though perhaps what she is inadvertently pointing out is that the teachers unions have gone too far to hide their incessant pulling of political strings.

One could also argue that conservatives are rather late entering the fight. For far too long, the leftist teachers unions have gotten their way in curriculum and policy. This has allowed dangerous agendas such as Critical Race Theory, sex education in kindergarten, and LGBTQ+ to influence our most vulnerable. Conservatives are now vocally running for school board positions; parents are actually attending meetings and making their voices heard; and governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are fighting against the mask mandates. These are all changes for the better.

If standing up to the teachers unions and pointing out their corruption is what it takes to reclaim education, then so be it. The minds of our children are worth fighting for.