civil rights act of 1875, a federal law that granted all people access to public accommodations like trains and theaters regardless of race. watch "landmark cases" tonight on c-span3 and any time at c-span.org. u.s. attorney general william barr appears before the house judiciary committee's general oversight hearing before the justice department on tuesday july 28th. watch live on c-span. watch any time on c-span.org. or listen on the go with the c-span radio app. this is randy winegard. she's talking about issues of reopening schools among the pandemic. thanks for joining us again. >> thank you. it's my honor. >> remind people of the american federation of teachers, who you represent.

>> we represent 1.7 million people across the country, all of whom are teachers, bus drivers, professionals, public employees, nurses and other health care professionals, 200,000 of whom have been working in hospitals through this pandemic. we essentially represent the people who make a difference every single day in the lives of americans and have been working as essential workers to help people be safe through this pandemic. >> your organization just did a survey of teachers, asking them what they would need to feel comfortable should schools reopen and let the pandemic -- what were some of the results of that? >> so, this is really -- i'm so glad you asked this question. we did a survey at the end of june, you know, basically wanting to wait until schools had finished this year. we also went by the largest

higher ed team to really get a sense of what teachers' beliefs and attitudes were right now after they had gone through remote. and what they told us -- because i'm sure that it's different than what it is today given the recklessness of t recklessne recklessness of devos and trump -- is at the end of june, 76% said that if we could get the safeguards that we had been fiercely advocating for since april, meaning safeguards to stop the spread of the virus, meaning that you have very little virus spread in a community, you have a testing infrastructure, and then in schools you have the social distancing, the masks, the cleaning, the ventilation and reasonable accommodation for people at risk. that's on top of washing your

hands. 76% of them were comfortable going back to in-person learning. i think given what has happened in the last two weeks with devos and trump basically wanting public schools to fail by creating this chaotic situation that says that -- that denies the virus, that says you can wrecklessly open up without following science, without having the resources, i would say that that number has completely reversed now. >> both betsy devos and president trump in talking about this stressed the importance of having kids physically back in school, saying it's the best environment for them to learn. do you disagree or agree with that concept? >> look, of course i agree with that concept. pre-pandemic we were having this fight with betsy devos for years because she has always been into virtual learning as a substitute for public education. she's into anything she can have as a substitute for public

education. she hates public education. but we know that you need to have in-school learning. m teachers want to be back in the classrooms. we also poled our members to see what they thought about remote. even though they gave districts a lot of credit for trying to help support them, by 86% to 12%, they saw that remote learning didn't work. it's not a substitute for it. but this is the problem. you can't have a false choice. you can't pit safety of people in the middle of a pandemic that is surging in florida, in texas, in california against education. we need actually to do both. safety comes first, as my members say. safety comes first, but we also have to do things to ensure that kids can get a decent education this year even with the pandemic. and that will probably mean that in most places we're going to

start on remote. there will be places where you can do some in-person learning. i'm a big proponent of that. but it has to be safe. my members want it -- as you can see from that polling, they knew that if it was safe, they were comfortable. but now you have a huge virus spread that is raging throughout the country and you have a reckless president and secretary of education who seem to deny the virus and not care about jeopardizing people's lives. >> educators, you can call and ask questions at 202-748-8000. all others 242-. you can text questions at 202-748-8003. randy, for the federal government's responsibility, dollarwise, is there a figure in your mind that needs to be seen

in order to make schools safe? >> yes, look, i think that the h.e.r.o.e.s. bill was a first step because it's a two-parter, pedro. it's what the states -- remember state-aid basically funds state aid and property taxes basically fund public schools. but state revenues crater in march and april, and i think that because of the surge they're going to crater again. and so as a result, the federal government should not just be propping up the cruise industry, should not just be propping up the airline industry as important as airlines are to the economy. but the most important services for people have been what states and localities in schools and hospitals have been doing throughout this pandemic. and so, that's why states need about, you know, states need the support that the h.e.r.o.e.s. act gave which is about half a trillion dollars.

localities as well. so, i would say we need the trillion dollars from the h.e.r.o.e.s. act and on top of that about another hundred billion because of the cost of reopening schools. our union figured out that it was $116 billion in order to pay for ppe, the masks, the face shields, the other ppe that we need to pay for the structures to create the physical distancing of six feet, to play for the cleaning, to play for the rejig erg of the ventilation systems, to pay for the nurses and guidance counselors we need to school. let me do a thought experiment here. if you are actually going to do what donald trump says which is assuming no surge like take a place like new york or new jersey where you have infection rates down below 1% right now and you are going to re-open

every school five days a week with all the services kids need, you would have to pay a half a trillion dollars. you would have to increase the number of teaches by about 50% because we're decreasing the capacity of schools by about 50%, and you're going to have to find tents and portables and all sorts of other things so we have the space for kids. so, you see trump and devos administration and mcconnell, they are not going anywhere near that number. what they're doing is they don't have a plan, they don't have the resources. they're just trying to create a talking point because they know just like we know that schools are really important for kids. we believe it's important because we have to deal with and address kids lost instruction and we have to meet their needs, their emotional needs, their social needs. but what we're seeing is that devos and trump and mcconnell just wanted to be a talking point as opposed to actually

wanting to solve the problem. >> we have called lined up for you. moses starts us off. he's in minnesota. you're on, moses, go ahead. >> caller: yeah, you know, if i remember correctly, you made a position about impeaching trump. so, you know, you've got a million plus teachers and you guys can't come up with a solution. you think trump is going to come up with a solution? >> look, we have come up with a solution. we've put our solutions out at the end of april. we spent the entire month of april talking to epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease folks to figure out how to do this. frankly, we have a plan. i sat on the cuomo commission in noshlg new york state and we came up with a plan. we want people back in schools. and remember what i said, sir. my membership before trump and devos was reckless at the beginning of july, 76% of them

said if we got the safeguards we were talking about, they were comfortable with schools. the question is we need the leadership, the planning, the resources. frankly, the administration turned their back on the virus and now it's surging. >> okay. we'll let him finish that thought. you kind of cut him off. >> i'm sorry, moses. >> caller: thank you, very much. you made a point about impeachment. you're a union. you represent teachers. here's my point. why are you not an essential worker? we have people in the military that go and fight for our country to protect us. your teachers won't even go in the classroom. the parents are saying go in the classroom. the students are saying go in the classroom. but you're yellow teachers who typically are communist, most of them, your union is, can't even go into the classroom and teach kids. >> okay. moses. there's the thought. >> let me just say to you, sir, my grandfather was escaped from

russia. he would actually be rolling over in his grave if he knew that somebody was calling his granddaughter a communist. let me just say that to you. the point i'm trying to make to you, sir, is that teachers are essential workers and they have been working and they have been engaging kids all year long. they changed their teaching practices in a nanosecond. and frankly the polling that i've seen in the last few days, just like what has happened with my members, is that because of the recklessness of trump and devos and mcconnell, it has switched to 70% or so of parents don't want to send their kids to places that are dangerous. we want schools to reopen. we want them to reopen safely. we've been working on it since april. and ultimately, i'd love to work with you and try to figure out how do reopen schools safely as

opposed to anything. >> let's hear from parent in florida. carlos, hello. >> caller: hi. yeah, i'm a parent of two. i have somebody -- a child in middle school and also in elementary. you know, the data that you were bringing up was from april. well, a lot of things have changed between april and now. the state opened throughout this whole thing, schools have been going there. in florida, daycares have never closed due to covid. even when our percentages were low, the transmission was not increased. so, we do have to look at the data compared to april. i'm not saying it's not safe for the teachers, but for the children, there is not -- we don't have enough -- we don't have the data that shows that you're transmitting this disease. look, we can't politicize this. our kids have to go back to school. it's better for -- me and my wife, we both work from home. this has just been -- it's just a wrecking ball into the house.

i mean, it's just -- they have to go back to school. it's just not fair to them. it's not fair to the family. we just have to fight this. but there's no proof that children are transmitting this disease. >> okay. carlos, we'll let our guest answer. >> so, carlos, thank you for that. and frankly, what you just said is what drove the aft to do -- we were the first ones to put out a plan about how to get us back to school. we want schools reopened. we want them reopened safely. but we are getting new data every single day. and frankly there's now data from south korea that show that older kids actually transmit the way that adults do. the point is we know it's not going to be risk-free. that's why i'm saying to you that before trump and devos

started with their recklessness, before they denied that the virus existed, before desantis denied the virus existed and you had that huge surge in florida, 76% of my members were ready, comfortable in terms of going back to school buildings with those safeguards. what some of us are trying to say you were totally right about the daycare centers and in places one of the things we use in terms of figuring out the safeguards were the safeguards that were happening in daycare centers and in rec centers in new york and other places. we know that the physical distancing of six feet and masks and cleaning and ventilation and kids not using each others stuff really works. and younger kids need schools. i would disagree with you about sweden and about what has happened in these different

places. but we need to have the kind of infrastructure set up. i do not want to be on remote instruction just like you do not want to be on remote instruction. but we need to try and make sure that it's safe before we put people into classrooms in that don't have the ventilation and safeguards. that's what we're trying to do. >> there's an organization who's suing the government of florida over the reopening of schools. what do you know about this lawsuit? >> they are our affiliate, and we have been engaged in this lawsuit. and frankly, what happened was that lawsuit is about letting the different jurisdictions in florida make their own decisions rather than actually force without safety standards or anything else the -- having