Free Republic

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten told an audience in Washington, D.C., that “private, religious, online and home schools” are an “extremist scheme by a very vocal minority of Americans” that lead to the “bullying of the most vulnerable among us.”

WASHINGTON — A top White House ally plans to paint Republicans’ focus on issues around race, gender and sexual identity as part of a GOP strategy to undermine public education as White House officials debate how forcefully to engage in the so-called culture wars dominating the right. In remarks prepared for the National Press Club on Tuesday, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is expected to say state and local laws that ban certain types of books or restrict what can be taught in the classroom are “fueling hostility and fear” and aren’t serving students, parents or teachers, according...

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled that he will make a priority of passing a long-debated proposal that would prevent teachers from having union dues deducted from their paychecks. DeSantis supported the proposal Monday during a speech in Orlando, describing it as “paycheck protection legislation.” The Florida Education Association and other teachers unions backed DeSantis’ Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, in the Nov. 8 election, with Miami-Dade County teachers union leader Karla Hernandez serving as Crist’s running mate. DeSantis also has battled unions in recent years about issues such as reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. During what was described...

The nation’s largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), declined by at least 59,000 members during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) disclosure reports. The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, lost 40,107 members while the AFT, the nation’s second largest teachers union, declined by 19,078, according to the DOL reports. The decline comes as public schools added 95,000 educators from September 2021 to 2022. ... The decline in the NEA’s membership leaves the union with 2,496,627 million educators, the lowest union membership since 2006, 74...

In 2021, the two largest teachers’ unions in the country collected over half a billion dollars from their members, and almost all of their political spending went to leftist causes. While 57 percent of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) membership is either Republican or independent, nearly 100 percent of political spending of the $575 million in dues was funneled into far-left politics.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is in Ukraine this week to meet with Ukrainian students and teachers and “to offer solidarity and support” to Ukrainian students and teachers “amid heinous attacks on Democracy,” according to the AFT website. The Ukrainian teachers union, the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers, invited the AFT reportedly, “to bear witness and call attention to the effects on children, families and educators and the impact of Russia’s attacks on democracy and democratic institutions.” “Woke up this am to reports of disgusting Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Lviv & other cities,” Weingarten...

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), is in Ukraine. Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of Education in the Biden Shipwreck, is worried about contraception for children. Your children were kept out of school for two years. Their reading and math scores are in the septic tank. This is not an accident or incompetence. And not us let forget that the Attorney General Merrick Garland considers complaining parents to be domestic terrorists. The elites of our country are intentionally destroying your children. You cannot sit this one out. Randi Weingarten (AFT) had the gall to Tweet that she...

Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job. The top four public labor unions in the U.S. lost more than 200,000 members since the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job, a new report shows that. The Commonwealth Foundation released the report, which found that the top four public labor unions – AFT, AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU – lost nearly 219,000 members altogether since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling. “The Janus decision to end forced...

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday. The list, posted by an account called "Freesus Patriot," claimed that Florida has banned books such as, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "A Wrinkle in Time." The account also tweeted that they would not reveal the source of the list. Weingarten was re-elected to lead the AFT in July, making it her eighth term as AFT president. Weingarten replied to another tweet pointing out that the list was "made up" and said that she should have...

On January 28th, 2022, Matt Hoover of the CRS Firearms YouTube channel was taken into custody by U.S. Marshalls after the ATF sought and obtained an indictment against him. He is charged with helping to sell and distribute machine guns illegally by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This case is little-known outside of the Second Amendment community, but its result will have big repercussions. Let’s get into the weeds and explore just what is happening. Prior to being arrested, Matt Hoover entered into a business deal with Kristopher Ervin, the owner of a business called ‘Auto Key...

A survey of nearly 4,000 K-12 teachers in Texas found that most do not want to be armed while in class or be expected to intercept a gunman at school, according to the state’s teachers union, which released its survey results Wednesday. The Texas American Federation of Teachers sent an online questionnaire to its 65,000 members, which include public school teachers, support personnel and higher education employees, a week after an 18-year-old gunman killed 21 people — including 19 children — at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Soon after the shooting, Texas Republicans said the solution could be arming teachers....

Executive Summary The political Left often criticizes—and the mainstream media frequently report on—the network of center-right nonprofits funded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch. But few politicos know of a left-wing leviathan in Washington, D.C., with a reach rivaling that of the Koch network. This study by the Capital Research Center documents a shadowy web into which nearly $600 million flowed in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available. Operating under the aegis of “philanthropy,” this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC. Arabella manages four nonprofit...

Whatever she thinks she’s doing, American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten isn’t helping her members with such over-the-top extremism as claiming that things like Florida’s new parental-rights law are “the way in which wars start.” Yes, she actually argued on a podcast that parents and politicians worried about some teachers and school staff seeking to indoctrinate kids are just pushing “propaganda” and “misinformation.” “We’re not indoctrinating,” she said. “We’re not grooming. . . . What we’re doing is making sure we educate kids. We keep them safe. We keep them welcome. And we teach them how to think, not...

Nineteen organizations demanded Congress investigate the Orwellian partnership between leftist website ratings firm NewsGuard and the anti-parent American Federation of Teachers. A coalition of education and tech policy groups, led by Fight for Schools, warned in their letter to Congress: “Given the rise of political intolerance within academic institutions and censorship from the tech industry, we are alarmed by this partnership and its implications for core American values in our schools.” The letter stipulated that “we are calling on Congress to investigate this partnership, including its origins, its intentions, its applications, and the broader issue of biased and conflicted so-called...

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist says the agency sending a draft of its school reopening guidance to a powerful teachers union was unusual. “It’s uncommon,” said Dr. Henry Walke, who directs the CDC’s Center for Preparedness and Response. It’s also not common for the CDC to incorporate line-by-line edits from outside groups into its guidance, according to Walke. The career government scientist was speaking in February to staff members on the House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Portions of the interview were released on March 30. Earlier releases show that the CDC used...

Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, said the “real issue” when it comes to coronavirus restrictions, including masking children, is making sure people “feel” safe — not the actual science. “The issue becomes how do we make sure the entire community in a school feels safe and welcome,” she said during an appearance on MSNBC, agreeing that it is time to discuss an “off-ramp for masks” in schools. Weingarten said:

Amid a growing clamor to lift school mask mandates, the head of the nation’s largest teachers union said Tuesday that a rollback should hinge on student vaccination rates... “At what point do we just say, ‘Okay, it’s time to get rid of the masks’?” asked host Willie Geist after showing Weingarten a copy of Tuesday’s New York Post front page on the matter. “Isn’t there enough science available already?” While the governors of Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware have announced an end to school mask mandates, Weingarten remained circumspect. “The real question becomes, how can we make sure people...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -(Ammoland.com)- Congressional Representative Michael Cloud (R-TX) and 51 other Republican Congress members recently sent a letter (embedded below), to ATF questioning the Bureau’s growing database of personal information about American’s gun purchases.“We are concerned that this Administration is leveraging its power in a way to establish a federal gun registry. Moreover, we are opposed to a recent(sic) proposed regulation that would require federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to facilitate the creation of a federal gun registry.”.According to a response letter (embedded below), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) acknowledged it has over 920 million firearms records,...

NewsGuard, the establishment “news-rating” project that presents itself as a source of expert knowledge on which news sources can be trusted and which ones cannot, will be rolling out to millions of American schoolchildren due to a partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Per Axios, the AFT will purchase NewsGuard licenses for all of its 1.7 million teachers, in a major deal for the news-rating project. NewsGuard has had a reputation as a project of the political establishment since its inception. NewsGuard maintains a list of news outlets it considers “trustworthy” and “untrustworthy,” data which it uses in...

“Follow the science,” it said about handling COVID. But for Team Biden, it was follow the teachers unions when it came to reopening schools. Emails between the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — provided to the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust via a Freedom of Information Act request — reveal that the Biden administration not only consulted national teachers unions before releasing school reopening guidance to the public, it put a heavy thumb on the scales in favor of the unions’ agenda.