good evening and welcome to fox news
primetime i'm lawrence jones
and tonight we are reimagining education
joe biden's secretary of education
richard cardona was confirmed this week
with a 6433 vote who is richard cardona
now his nomination flew under the radar
so i don't blame you
if you happen to miss him say this back
in december
we must embrace the opportunity to
reimagine education and
build it back better we must evolve it
to meet the needs of our students
reimagine education now on paper it
sounds good
after all the american education system
was failing millions of students
long before covet took place a little
creativity and imagination would
probably be
pretty good but then i remember what
reimagination means to the teachers
union
there really is so much that i feel i
can do virtually
but perhaps the focus right now should
be
on reimagining what education looks like
in the future if you prioritize safety
we can figure out how to reimagine
education
if the future of education is virtual we
don't need to imagine
what the impact will be on our children
we can see it right now in households
all over america
our kids are struggling in silence
while the union screen to keep the
schools close
the left likes to throw around phrases
like social justice
equity they say black lives matter
who do you think this hurts the most
that's right black and brown kids that's
who
one third of black households don't have
internet access
how are those kids supposed to learn
virtually
i'll tell you how they don't
a study of ohio students found that
black kids were
chronically absent 16 more this year
than in 2019 how will they make those
days up
how will they close the gap
the reality is many won't
the fact is this lost year doesn't end
when the lockdowns are lifted our
children's study gap
isn't just gonna go away it's gonna get
worse
it will snowball for
a stanford study estimates that children
who miss out on schooling
because of the pandemic could end up
earning six to nine percent less
over the course of their careers and if
i seem angry or
upset by this please understand why
i see myself in those stats
i grew up in garland texas a town
outside of dallas where
70 percent of the students were eligible
for free or reduced lunch
i'm the oldest of three and my mom and
dad both worked
hard sometimes they had to work late
and a principal or a basketball coach
would have to drive me home from school
they did everything that they could to
give us a better life
and i am grateful for them every day
but i wonder what would have happened to
our family if i was a kid now what if
the pandemic cost my parents their jobs
or better yet
what if they had to keep working
who would have overseen my schooling
who would have shouldered the burden or
of making sure my brother and my sister
were in front of a computer
and paying attention
that would have been on me
the truth of the matter is i don't know
if i would be
here sitting in this seat talking to you
right now
as if
as if that pandemic would have hit when
i was a little boy
think about it we won't know the true
impact of these lockdowns for decades
but we do know that our kids are hurting
right now they're desperate to return in
the classroom
to some kind of normalcy there are kids
here in new york who are willing to
travel
three hours to play football at a
charter school in harlem
because they know playing ball and
getting a scholarship
is their best chance to get out to
succeed
why are we making them work this hard
and look at this little girl who was
locked out of her
school for nearly an entire year
guess what what
really
i think this was such a long time
[Music]
do you feel that you can't watch that
video and tell me virtual learning is
good
for our children the isolation alone is
taking a toll on our children's mental
health
and now we have the facts to prove it
teen suicide attempts were up 99 in
april
compared in 2020 compared to 2019.
overdoses were even worse up nearly 120
percent
those aren't just numbers those are our
children
those are kids like dylan buckner of
north brook illinois
just 18 years old a good student
a popular kid a historic quarterback
with 14 offers to play college ball
a young man on the rise
dylan he took his own life back in
january
his parents said he was struggling with
depression which only got worse during
the lockdown
his friends and community came together
for a visual after he died
if those friends had been able to get
together with dylan at any point during
the last 12 months
have a burger maybe study some algebra
would he still be alive today how many
more dylans will it take before we
stand up and say enough
at some point the pandemic will be over
our kids will go back to school and
maybe just maybe we'll forget about this
last year
maybe we'll forget about the people who
fought to keep our classroom
closed even when the science said
it was bad for our kids
but don't do it never forget
take action and vote out the governors
the mayors
the school board and city council
members who put the demands
of the unions ahead of the health and
well-being
of our children remember
this is america you have the power to
fight
back so stand up make sure
that the people who locked up your
children never
have the chance to do it ever
again