Free Republic

DOGE: While teachers scrape by, union "executives" like Randi Weingarten gorge themselves on salaries nearly eight times higher, raking in close to $600,000 a year. They neither teach a single child nor train a single teacher. They are not educators, they are parasites, draining a system they pretend to serve. ... She also flies in a private jet.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said she was "spitting mad" over the staffing cuts at the Department of Education, describing it as an "evisceration by a thousand cuts." "So what it does is that it levels the playing field, so all kids can have opportunity, and that it was they are cutting, and when they cut half the people, it's like evisceration by a thousand cuts," Weingarten said, listing the Department of Education's duties. The Department of Education announced on Tuesday that it would be shrinking its workforce from around 4,133 to around 2,183 employees. Remaining workers impacted...

American Federation of Teachers honcho Randi Weingarten’s sudden outrage over Team Trump’s plan to abolish the federal Department of Education is simply about losing her own power and influence — not any risk to the kids. America’s “competitors — and adversaries — are no doubt cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education,” Weingarten asserts in an MSNBC column, pretending the DOE “helps give all children in the United States access to the great public school education they deserve.” Nonsense: Few kids in America have “access” to “great public school education”; we lag our peers badly...

Teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten said during a recent podcast appearance that she is fearful President Donald Trump's plans to terminate the Department of Education will mean more funding for school choice vouchers, which she decried as a "tax credit" for wealthy families already sending their kids to private school. Weingarten's comments came during a podcast interview with Molly Jong-Fast, who spoke with her about the implications of Trump's spending reforms, particularly his plan to terminate the Department of Education. Weingarten stated that cutting the department's roughly $100 billion in funding will primarily benefit tax cuts for the wealthy or...

Imagine my unpleasant surprise when Trump nominated a woman to be Secretary of Labor who can count American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten among her fans. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) is the worst Republican Trump could have picked for Labor. ... For any conservative who had high hopes for the Trump 47 administration, Weingarten's approval of Chavez-DeRemer's nomination undoes a lot of the goodwill that had been built up. That's not the worst thing about this choice, however. Chavez-DeRemer (an annoying name to type repeatedly, by the way) is one of only three Republicans in the House to support...

A union representing roughly 1.8 million teachers and other educational workers used taxpayer-funded dues to book a trip to a famous casino and to pay for meals at luxury restaurants. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spent over $370,000 on expenses at Caesars Palace, a luxury hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, disclosure forms show. In addition, the AFT also used dues collected from its members to help pay for trips to Europe and South America, as well as to pay off five-figure tabs at upscale restaurants. “My suspicion is that this is a case of ‘rank hath its...

American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten has been ripped as an “unhinged lunatic” after she delivered a wild, political rally-style speech suggesting that former President Donald Trump was an “existential threat” to democracy. The teachers’ union president screamed and shouted at her members as she warned of looming violence and fascism if Trump wins the 2024 election when she took the stage during the AFT’s annual convention in Houston, Texas, on Monday. “The November elections will determine which path we take as a nation. Progress is indeed possible, but so is the eradication of the rights and freedoms we...

It is hard to overstate just how much public education in the United States was permanently changed by extended school closures of 2020 and 2021. For an entire year, millions of students across the country were forced to attend classes via Zoom, wear masks that affected their cognitive abilities, and were generally socially isolated. At the same time, decision-makers in school districts from Virginia to California were pushing a political agenda that blatantly sought to shut parents out of the education of their own children. The swift and intense backlash from parents changed the politics of education forever. And documenting...

Time to Change Our Language.. It is time to stop blaming “Covid” for breaking the economy, destroying businesses and livelihoods, and wreaking untold havoc upon families. It was not “Covid” that did this. It was not even the Chinese. It was our government. The government has conditioned us to blame the impersonal “Covid” for the destruction it wrought upon our businesses and families. We need to change the discussion by using the proper language to fix the blame where it belongs. Good generals can win a battle by picking the terrain upon which they fight. At Waterloo, Wellington forced Napoleon...

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten recently said that school choice “undermines democracy.” In a video of her remarks, Weingarten slammed former White House Education Secretary Betsy Devos, City Journal journalist Christopher Rufo, and prominent school choice activist Corey DeAngelis. “[School choice proponents] have not one thing that they offer as a solution other than privatizing or voucherizing schools, which is about undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism, because 90 percent of our kids goes to public schools still. They just divided. Divided, divide, divide, divide,” Weingarten claimed. “What did Rufo say? Rufo, DeAngelis, Devos,...

The leader of one of the nation's largest teachers unions was seen in a viral video saying that school choice "undermines democracy." American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten made the remarks at the "Network for Public Education Action" national conference in October. A clip of her remarks blasting methods of school choice was shared on X and went viral on social media this week. In the video, Weingarten took aim at former White House Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Manhattan Institute's Christopher Rufo, and American Federation For Children Senior Fellow Corey DeAngelis for advocating for school choice measures. "They...

This is the anthesis of JFK’s book “Profiles In Courage.” This is about how The Teachers’ Union and Randi Weingarten are fascilitating a collapse in math scores in US schools. Weingarten, who was instrumental in shutting down schools during the Covid epidemic, and the national Teachers’ Union are the existential threat to democracy, not global warming. Why? Randi and The Teachers’ Union have led America down the drain in the area of mathematics, an important subject in the global economy. American students scored an all-time low in math on a major international exam, which provided the first comparison of global...

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) PresidentRandi Weingarten was slapped with an X community note after asking where the “women” were during an all-male Jewish prayer service. Weingarten, who said in 2010 she considers herself to be a “deeply religious” Jew, quoted Jewish conservative commentator Mark Levin’s video footage of the minyan — a quorum of Jewish adults, traditionally male, required for certain religious observances — outside the White House. “Where are the women?” Weingarten asked in the post, which has its comments section limited to Weingarten’s followers. The post garnered a response from Levin as well as a community note...

Want to have some ability to choose where your child goes to school? Well, then you’re a racist. So says Randi Weingarten, leader of the American Federation of Teachers. Words like “school choice” or “parental rights,” she maintains, are the “same kinds of words” used by segregationists, so if you use them too, you’re one of them. Predictably, Weingarten is now furiously backpedaling, claiming that she was just making an innocent comment about “language” rather than actually accusing anyone of being racist, but this isn’t the first time she’s beat this drum. In 2017, she called school-choice programs the “only...

Randi Weingarten, a major proponent of school lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions, was appointed to the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council on Wednesday. “Leaders of our academic institutions and campus life have a great deal to offer in helping us counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement announcing the decision. The council’s specific tasks include advising Mayorkas on research, career development, and partnership opportunities that will help the department “safeguard the American people, and help our country think through and prepare for whatever threats lie ahead,” Mayorkas said.

“That woman murdered babies, and she knew it. And five days after we posted [Pfizer] Report 69, she announced her resignation. So that’s what Congress should be asking her about.” Walensky seemed less cool in this appearance for Congress. This is the least composed and the most nervous, I feel, like I’ve seen this woman who’s usually kind of cool as a cucumber,” noted conservative podcaster Emerald Robinson Thursday. She also “perjured herself twice,” expressed special guest and DailyClout CEO Dr. Naomi Wolf. The soon-to-be former CDC Director (June 30), Rochelle Walensky, testified before Congress for two hours on Tuesday....

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten claimed Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that people are “getting really angry” at the education policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “I want to come back to the other policy which is I think the most unpopular of all in sort of this new mom’s group and the polling that’s out is the book bans.” Weingarten said, “Two things are unpopular, the book bans and also why you would get rid of social emotional learning when we have a mental health crisis? We have to make sure that kids feel...

There is a reason why you know who Randi Weingarten, the leader of the second-largest teachers union in the country, is. She’s the one who threatened to strike if schools did not close in 2020. She is the one who said that school closures were not that big of a deal because “kids are resilient." She is the one who influenced the CDC to change its COVID-19 guidelines using almost her exact language. She is the one who introduced a campaign to bring Ibram X. Kendi’s simplistic ideas on race into “every classroom.” In other words, you know who Randi...

There are many reasons why so many US public schools remained persistently closed for well over a year, but at the top of the list is Randi Weingarten. She is the President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and served as the self-appointed and media-anointed spokesperson for teachers’ unions throughout the pandemic. Weingarten appeared regularly across national media outlets for well over two years, relentlessly touting the dangers of public schools and the risk to teachers from in-person instruction. She also painted anyone who advocated for schools to open as heartless and cruel. Now that it’s become clear what...

This week, history and civics scores across the nation plummeted to record lows among eighth graders. Just 13% of students performed at or above the “proficient” level in U.S. history. It is the latest appalling report on our declining educational system — a matter that should be treated as a national crisis of literally historic proportions. As discussed in prior columns, we are graduating students from high school who cannot proficiently read or do math. School districts have responded by solving the problem by simply lowering standards and eliminating gifted programs. Now we are producing citizens who know little about...