Here's some news that shows us just how bright the U.S. teachers' unions are:

One of the world's largest studies of its kind is expected to conclude that there is little evidence that coronavirus is transmitted in schools, according to a UK media report on Sunday, giving a boost to their proposed reopening next month.

Professor Russell Viner, President of the UK's Royal College of Paediatrics and a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told 'The Sunday Times' that a forthcoming report by Public Health England (PHE) would help put parents' minds at rest as the UK prepares for a full reopening of schools after lockdown and the current summer holiday period in Britain.

"A new study that has been done in UK schools confirms there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools," Viner told the newspaper.

"This is some of the largest data you will find on schools anywhere. Britain has done very well in terms of thinking of collecting data in schools," he said.

The study was carried out in 100 institutions in the UK and is expected to be published later this year. About 20,000 pupils and teachers in 100 schools across England were tested to monitor the spread of the disease up to the end of the summer term – which runs from April-July in Britain.

"It is absolutely essential for schools to reopen in September. The risks to children from Covid are very low and the risks of school closures we know are very serious," he said.

The teachers' unions, in fact, have a "very big megaphone," as the Christian Science Monitor quotes one person as saying, in keeping the schools closed because it's all so supposedly unsafe.  Never mind about the kids not getting any education, which is certainly the case with little kids who are not naturals for Zoom-style learning.  Even the Mexicans do a better job of such shutdowns, offering all courses on television, knowing that even the very poor have television.  Not the teachers' unions here.

Here's their stance, using the example from Los Angeles.  According to National Review:

"This is a painful decision, but we have to keep health and safety first," L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner told the local Fox affiliate on Wednesday. "There's no substitute for being in school, we understand that. But we can only be in school when all at the school are safe."

"As it stands, the only people guaranteed to benefit from the premature physical reopening of schools amidst a rapidly accelerating pandemic are billionaires and the politicians they've purchased," the UTLA study concludes.

"We must shift the astronomical amount of money devoted to policing, to education and other essential needs such as housing and public health," the study reads. The study also supported a moratorium on charter schools, saying they "drain resources from district schools" and received "federal small business bailout loans even though state funding did not decline this school year."

So little kids, and every other level of student, get just distance learning with no personal attention, while teachers' union members get paid bloated six-figure salaries with full pension benefits, all for doing almost no work.  Such a sweet deal — safety first, don't you know — and it will always be safety first for this bunch, into eternity, because there's no such thing as life without risks, even before COVID.  It's all just too dangerous for them.

Actually, it's just a hog wallow for them, an opportunity to hold school openings hostage to their favorite pet projects.  They'll go back to teach when charter schools are banned, leaving less competition to their presence, and police are defunded — not a bright move in inner-city schools where discipline is already nonexistent.

None of these demands have anything to do with any dangers from COVID.

Now even COVID carries little danger from COVID, as the U.K. study shows.  Safety first?  Nope, it's unions first, and who cares about little kids?  Hey, they'll learn somehow, or better yet, grow up ignorant and third-world-y, the better to manipulate at the polls and provide a client base for vast armies of government welfare bureaucrats.

And sure enough, interest in homeschooling is soaring, as I noted here, as parents look for alternatives to private schools.

Increasingly, the unions don't have a leg to stand on as they refuse to go back to work.  The U.K. study shows that children are not big vectors for the spread of COVID.  The rest of the world is noticing and carrying on.  Schools in Sweden, Taiwan, South Korea, and much of the rest of Europe are already opening.  Only America's little kids get left behind.  If this isn't an argument for getting rid of teachers' unions, what is?

 Image credit: Pixabay, public domain.