Randi Weingarten on Defending Our Public Education

Summary

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The Al Franken Podcast

Episode: Randi Weingarten on Defending Our Public Education

Date: September 21, 2025
Guest: Randi Weingarten (President, American Federation of Teachers)
Main Theme: The threats facing public education in America, why authoritarian movements attack teachers, and how defending public schools is defending democracy.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Al Franken interviews Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers and author of the new book Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy. They discuss the historical and current attacks on public education, the crucial role of teachers and unions, the risks of privatization and vouchers, as well as timely topics like COVID’s impact on learning, school funding disparities, and the rise of book bans and curriculum censorship. The episode emphasizes why public education is fundamental to sustaining democracy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Randi Weingarten’s Path: Law, Teaching, and Union Leadership

• Randi started as a labor-focused lawyer but, inspired by her mother’s strike as a teacher, transitioned to union work and direct teaching in Brooklyn.
• Her background gave her first-hand knowledge of both the power of organizing and the vital role of educators.
• Quote: “I really thought, you can't really understand what people do unless you actually take the time, energy, and effort to do it.” —Randi Weingarten (06:26)

2. Why Fascists Fear Teachers: The Book’s Intent

• Randi stresses the book is not about calling anyone a ‘fascist’, but about exposing systemic attacks on teachers and public schools as intentional power moves.
• She highlights right-wing figures like Mike Pompeo and Chris Rufo as examples of those manufacturing distrust in public education to further privatization.
• Reference to Putin: “Wars are won by teachers”—a statement that is “a compliment and a veiled threat” (09:05).
• Quote: “They fear critical thinking. They fear us... In the absence of education, you create conditions for tyranny and you create the conditions for kings and tyrants.” —Randi Weingarten (09:05)

3. Threats to Public Education: Defunding and Department of Education

• Discussion of Trump’s push to eliminate the Department of Education; Randi frames this as an attack on the future and civil rights of students (10:42–12:00).
• Title I funding, which supports schools serving low-income students, is explained and its importance to poorer/rural communities is emphasized.

4. Changing Priorities & The Role of Career and Technical Education (CTE)

• There is a positive shift toward CTE, drawing lessons from European systems.
• 40% of US high school graduates don’t attend college—emphasizing the need for viable career paths.
• CTE teaches problem solving, teamwork, communication—skills essential beyond academics (13:22).
• Quote: “What career tech ed does is experiential learning, problem solving, it is critical thinking, working in relationships with a group of people, it’s communicating.” —Randi Weingarten (13:22)

5. The Tech Challenge: Phones, Devices, and AI

• Devices (especially phones) distract and negatively affect learning; Randi advocates minimal student phone use in schools (14:21–14:29).
• She warns about AI’s dual edge: powerful teaching aid or source of privacy invasion and plagiarism.
• Teacher training in AI usage is ongoing; experiential, project-based learning is emphasized to foster critical thinking (19:18–21:01).
• Quote: “If you’re just basically taking from ChatGPT... how are you thinking? How are you problem-solving?” —Randi Weingarten (20:10)

6. Testing: From Proficiency to Growth and Performance

• The move from high-stakes standardized testing (No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top) toward performance-based assessments is underway, though testing still dominates (15:39–16:44).
• Project-based and collaborative assessment is presented as the future.

7. How Schools Are Funded

• The American model: 40% local (mainly property tax), 40% state, 10% federal; this creates wide funding disparities (22:00–24:29).
• Other developed nations prioritize national funding for education, reducing inequality.

8. Unions and Power: Case Study Wisconsin v. Minnesota

• Scott Walker’s assault on teacher unions in Wisconsin led to wage cuts and damaged public education.
• In contrast, Minnesota, supporting unions and public schooling, thrived economically.
• Quote: “There are really...three ways that regular folks have any kind of power. One is through education...one is voting...and the third is to have some economic power...through a union.” —Randi Weingarten (26:19)

9. Charter Schools, Vouchers, and Privatization

• The origins of charter schools were rooted in innovation, not competition. The model shifted, taking funding from public schools.
• Randi supports diverse public school options but opposes models that remove resources from traditional public schools.
• Quote: “We have a responsibility in public schools to all kids...that’s why public schools are so important, because it’s for all.” —Randi Weingarten (33:06)

10. COVID’s Impact: Prolonged Closures & Inequities

• Public schools lacked rapid access to necessary funding for safety measures during COVID, unlike many private schools.
• Randi acknowledges schools remained closed too long but details AFT’s early plans to reopen safely (36:44–38:36).

11. Culture Wars: Book Bans, “Don’t Say Gay,” and Curriculum Censorship

• Laws and policies in states like Florida ban discussion of sexuality or restrict diverse stories, fostering “us vs. them” thinking that undermines pluralism and trust.
• Books like Anne Frank and Ruby Bridges are banned for representing diversity and historical truth.
• Quote: “This is the otherizing. This is what fascistic behavior starts at. Us versus them...Then dehumanizing the them, then denigrating the them. This is how fascists operate.” —Randi Weingarten (39:17)

12. Career/Technical Ed: Essential Skills for Modern Students

• American CTE is less robust than Europe’s; stronger federal prioritization could expand options and engagement (42:46–45:27).
• CTE fosters resilience, collaboration, and practical skillsets.

13. Message of the Book & Final Takeaways

• Randi’s book is a “love letter” to teachers and a call to recognize public education as the keystone of democracy.
• The far right’s attacks on teachers are strategic efforts to undermine knowledge and pluralism.
• Quote: “What we do in the United States of America to teach kids knowledge, critical thinking, create a welcoming and safe environment, this should be revered, not reviled.” —Randi Weingarten (46:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Wars are won by teachers.” (Citing Putin, 09:03)
• “They fear critical thinking. They fear us...” (Randi Weingarten, 09:05)
• “When you say you want to get rid of...the Department of Education, what you’re saying is you want to get rid of the civil rights of kids.” (Randi Weingarten, 11:16)
• “I’m never going to say you should or shouldn’t do [private/voucher/homeschool]. But...I want them to have enough funding in [public] schools.” (Randi Weingarten, 35:43)
• “This is the otherizing...us versus them...This is how fascists operate.” (Randi Weingarten, 39:17)
• “...to love teachers...this is for me was a love letter for them.” (Randi Weingarten, 45:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Al’s personal story about Mrs. Moline and intro — 01:12–04:18
• Randi’s background and motivation — 04:18–06:42
• Motivation for the book — 06:42–10:27
• Trump’s stance & Department of Education — 10:27–12:00
• Title 1 Funding and equity — 12:00–13:22
• Career & technical education — 13:18–14:20, 42:37–45:27
• Phones/devices in schools; impact on learning — 14:20–15:39
• Shifting views on standardized testing — 15:39–16:44
• Impact and promise of AI in education — 16:59–21:01
• How public schools are funded — 22:00–24:29
• Unions & the Wisconsin case — 25:37–28:38
• Charter schools, vouchers, privatization — 29:29–36:35
• COVID, learning loss, and school priorities — 36:35–38:36
• Book bans, censorship, ‘don’t say gay’ — 38:36–41:46
• Randi’s message and final thoughts — 45:27–47:02

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Episode’s Language and Tone

The episode deftly weaves Al Franken’s trademark humor and warmth (especially in his stories of his own teachers) with Randi Weingarten’s plainspoken, passionate advocacy for teachers and public education. Randi presents policy arguments in accessible language, repeatedly shifting to the human impact—making the episode equally informative and emotionally resonant.

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Final Note

A must-listen for anyone interested in the future of American democracy, the realities facing public schools, and the crucial importance of teachers in our society. Randi Weingarten’s urgent defense of public education is both a call to action and a tribute to a profession under siege.

Transcript

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[Al Franken]

Hey everybody. We got a great one today. You know, for a change, Randy Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, joins me to talk about her new book, why Fascists Fear Teachers, Public Education and the Future of Democracy. Now, I don't know about you, but I always loved my teachers, especially my elementary school teachers. I remember every one of them. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Moline, just passed a couple weeks ago at the age of 91. Mrs. Moline grew up on a farm in Minnesota, one of 17 children. Now, Mrs. Moline didn't have any children of her own, but she treated all of us as if we were all her kids. And when I ran for the Senate in Minnesota, I got a letter from Mrs. Maleen saying, if you were the Alan Franken who was my fourth grade student at Cedar Manor, you are a very good student. And she sent me a $25 contribution for my campaign. And of course, I remembered Ms. Maline as one of my favorite teachers. So I called her up and invited her to one of my campaign events. Well, we picked up from there and I asked her if she would do a commercial for the campaign. So here's Mrs. Moline doing my first campaign ad back in 2007.

[Mrs. Moline]

So I read about this man running for U.S. senate, and I thought, that's the Alan Franken I taught in St. Louis Park.

[Al Franken]

I got this letter from Mrs. Moline. She wanted to help with the campaign, so I asked her to be in a TV ad.

[Mrs. Moline]

A TV ad? Okay, here we go. Alan was a hard worker, and he went on to graduate from Harvard. He was funny, too. I guess that's why he became a comedian.

[Al Franken]

I was really more of a satirist.

[Mrs. Moline]

Okay, Alan. You see, he's also written six books and hosted a radio show on public policy. He's been married to Franny for 32 years, and they have two grown kids. And, you know, he's visited our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan four times. In the Senate, he'll work to make college affordable, fight for universal health care, and end the war in Iraq.

[Al Franken]

Thanks, Mrs. Moline.

[Mrs. Moline]

You're welcome, Alan.

[Al Franken]

I'm Al Lynn Franken, and I approve this message because I'm serious about fighting for Minnesota families. Well, we got a great response from the ad, and my campaign got all. All kinds of letters from her former students. I remember one from a former student saying that Mrs. Maleen stayed after school with her and helped her with the painting and that she never forgot it. So today, as the school year is beginning, we're going to discuss education with Randy Weingarten as it faces a president who wants to eliminate the Department of Education. It's a great one, you know, for a change. You went to law school, right?

[Randi Weingarten]

Yes, I went to law school, and then I taught at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, New York.

[Al Franken]

What grade did you teach?

[Randi Weingarten]

11Th and 12th.

[Al Franken]

Okay, so you're teaching high school?

[Randi Weingarten]

Yeah, social studies.

[Al Franken]

So what made you decide to leave law, go to teaching, and then become a union rep?

[Randi Weingarten]

So I had a very odd career path. I went to law school wanting to change the world, and I really wanted to do labor law. But the labor side law firms really weren't hiring. So I went to a Wall street law firm that did work in terms of labor. Now, why did I want to do labor law? I went to the School of Labor Relations at Cornell before that, because my mother was on strike for six weeks. During the 70s. I just watched what it meant to have some power.

[Al Franken]

What did she do? She went on strike.

[Randi Weingarten]

What did she do? She was a schoolteacher.

[Al Franken]

Okay, I see.

[Randi Weingarten]

Sorry. She was a school teacher. And in New York, strikes were illegal, which meant that you lost two days pay for every day you didn't work. So you can imagine what happened in our Family. But in my own district, I watched my favorite teachers being fired because of budget cuts. And so there was just something about this notion of how do you create power for people that don't have power? And I thought that education as well as labor was a way of doing it. And I was idealistic, and I wanted to save the world. And so I really wanted to be a labor lawyer. One thing led to the other, and I worked with the teachers union in New York City. And then when Sandy Feldman became the president of the union, she said, do you want to come in and be counsel to the union? I'm like, yes, I'd much rather do that. And then I really thought, you can't really understand what people do unless you actually take the time, energy, and effort to do it. And so I wanted to teach, and I taught at Clara Barton High School, and I taught for six or seven years, full time and part time, as I was the counsel to the teachers union in New York City.

[Al Franken]

You're doing both at the same time. Okay, you've written a new book, why Fascists Fear Teachers, Public Education and the Future of Democracy. Why did you decide to write that book? Now?

[Randi Weingarten]

For two reasons. Let me be clear. I've done this little spoiler alert. I actually don't call any particular person. I don't label any particular person a fascist, because what I didn't want to happen is the whole conversation about the book to be, is he or is he okay, sure. But what has been clear to me over the course of the last decade, with increasing velocity now, that this demonization of teachers, this smearing of teachers, this demonization of public education, it's not random. It's pretty intentional. And so when you have somebody like a Mike Pompeo call somebody like me the most dangerous person in the world.

[Al Franken]

Right now, when did he say that he was secretary of state?

[Randi Weingarten]

November 2022. But before that, when you have this constant barrage of negativity about teachers, particularly when teachers are really doing the most important work that helps kids have a future, I really wanted to figure out what was going on here. Was this intentional? Was this about destroying one of society's basic pillars? Or was it about test scores? And when you see somebody like Chris Ruffo basically say, the way we get universal vouchers, the way we get total fragmentation of schooling, is to create universal public school distrust. When you have people like Putin say wars are won by teachers, you see that this is a contrived plan over many years to actually undermine the foundation stone of our economy. And of our opportunity, of our futures, which is public education.

[Al Franken]

If wars are won by teachers, that's a compliment, isn't it?

[Randi Weingarten]

It's a compliment and a veiled threat about the nature of how important education is. I wrote the book to try to figure out why they were doing this, and I wrote the book to actually be a love letter to teachers, because teachers. So why do fascists fear teachers? They fear critical thinking. They fear us, you know, which is what the founders wanted public schools for. The founders understood, the framers of the Constitution understood that in the absence of education, you create the conditions for tyranny and you create the conditions for kings and for tyrants.

[Al Franken]

Madison and Washington and all these.

[Randi Weingarten]

Washington, Jefferson, you know, they weren't great about everything, you know that, but they really believed and understood that the way in which you fight tyrants, just like Putin understood, is that you create the conditions for broad based education. So I wrote it to figure this out. Is it a contrived plan? Yes. Is there a fear of what we do? Yes. Is there a fear of knowledge? Yes. Is there a fear of pluralism? Yes. And as Rufo said, they will be ruthless and brutal if they have to.

[Al Franken]

Now, one of the first things that Trump did was say he was going to get rid of the Department of Education. What does that say about his attitude toward education, and what does that mean? What does it mean for the country that they're doing this?

[Randi Weingarten]

What it says is he doesn't care about the future. That's what it really says. The Department of Education has a very limited role in terms of education in America anyway. It doesn't run any school districts. It doesn't run any schools. It's actually Department of Defense, or now I guess it's called the Department of War that runs some schools in America. They run the schools that are on military bases. But the Department of Education doesn't run.

[Al Franken]

Anything, any schools, but it determines policy and it determines financing of schools.

[Randi Weingarten]

Well, when you say you want to get rid of of education, the Department of Education, what you're saying is you want to get rid of the civil rights of kids. And what you're saying is that you want to get rid of the money that we fought so hard for to level the playing field, to create opportunity for all kids. So that's why I'm saying it says that you don't really care about the future of all kids. I don't even think he cares about the kids of parents who voted for him, because all this funding, the funding that he's been Cutting, you know, that his budget cuts about $5 billion of Title I. That money disproportionately goes to kids in Mississippi. It goes to kids in states that have voted for him.

[Al Franken]

Let's talk about what Title 1 funding is. My mother in law is a teacher and she taught in a Title 1 school. Title 1 school is basically a school that has a high proportion of low income students. You know, it gives money, right?

[Randi Weingarten]

So basically all the things that the education department does, it falls into two categories. One protects the civil rights of individuals and number two, it gives money to school districts directly for kids that have been historically left behind, like kids with special needs, kids who are poor, kids in rural areas. And then the second piece of this money umbrella is, is that things that are priorities of the country, like career tech ed had become a priority of the country in the end of Obama's term, the first term of Trump, Biden's term. There's been an increasing amount of funding that's gone to try to create career pathways starting from high school and community college so that kids had options beyond college that they could work as a welder, they could work in healthcare without having to opt for a college diploma.

[Al Franken]

I mean, European countries do a lot more career.

[Randi Weingarten]

European, Germany and Switzerland do a whole lot more. And it is a national priority and it should be a national priority here. 40% of kids who graduate from high school don't go to college right now we should have lots of different career options for kids so that they can make choices starting from high school. But even more than that, what we've learned is that the skill set that you develop if you're in career tech ed, it's experiential learning, it is problem solving, it is critical thinking, it is working in relationships with a group of people, it's communicating. These are ways that we're actually helping kids develop the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in today's environment. And the other thing we have to do in the last 10 years, we're really competing with the devices.

[Al Franken]

You're holding up a phone.

[Randi Weingarten]

I'm holding up a phone. I'm holding up my phone. Sorry. We're competing with those devices now.

[Al Franken]

Should phones be in school?

[Randi Weingarten]

No, no, no.

[Al Franken]

Right.

[Randi Weingarten]

You're going to have computers in schools because of the way in which they're used. But they're relied on phones and computers and devices are relied on far too much, says me, who is addicted to it. We spend too much time on it.

[Al Franken]

Teachers use computers, those kids, computers as tools to keep track of what the kids are doing and as a teaching tool in the classroom.

[Randi Weingarten]

The irony is, and Jonathan says this a lot, the guy who wrote Anxious Generation, if you look at big tech and the fact that so many people in big tech do not let their own kids use computers very much, we have to get back to figuring out how we look at each other, how we talk to each other, and too often we hide in our devices. And I think long term it's not good for kids. It's not just about the bullying, it's not just about the algorithms. It's also about long term attention and problem solving, critical thinking and reading.

[Al Franken]

How are we treating testing now? Has it changed over since no Child Left Behind? Are we. We're doing growth instead of proficiency, that kind of measurement.

[Randi Weingarten]

I hope essentially right now it got to be super, super, super measured. So it went from no Child Left behind to Race to the Top. Then President Obama realized that there was too much of a fixation on the algorithm and too much of a fixation on test scores. And so there's been much less of a fixation on high stakes standardized tests, but they're still more important than virtually anything else in schooling. And so part of what we've been pushing, it's, let's actually try to do things that are more performance based. Let's try to do debates, let's try to do project based instruction, let's try to have a goal in a class as opposed to a test, in a class where kids can actually engage with each other. You know what you see in private.

[Al Franken]

Schools, that's what I think employers want. They want people who can work in teams and I think people. So AI. Is AI going to have a huge effect on education?

[Randi Weingarten]

Yes. Tell me how what's happening with AI is. It is, in my judgment, as transformational as a printing press, for good and for bad. Meaning I really wish that we would have gotten some baseline regulation, particularly on issues of privacy and safety, before AI had gotten to the point that it's gotten to right now and that's a big government fail.

[Al Franken]

What's the issue there? Help me understand that.

[Randi Weingarten]

What's the issue?

[Al Franken]

Yeah. On AI and privacy data, personal data.

[Randi Weingarten]

Whether it's kids data, whether it's like take what Doge just did in terms of Social Security. Elon Musk and his Doge team had access to to people's Social Security numbers and their private information. Elon Musk and his Doge team put that data into AI to be used and God only knows what purposes. And so we're concerned about making sure that student data remains private. We're concerned that making sure that teacher data remains private. And the second thing is we're concerned about disinformation and misinformation and things like that. And those are the hazards. On the plus side, you could actually see. And teachers are actually. Because we started this national institute in terms of AI, we're working with some of the big tech companies in doing it. We're trying to train teachers about it because we want teachers to have real information about AI. We want them to have a facility with it. But what teachers are showing us is that there are not. Just go to ChatGPT to write the first draft of a lesson plan. You can actually see how AI, like in Pennsylvania, AI is helping social workers and guidance counselors actually do some paperwork so that they freed up time for them to do more social work services.

[Al Franken]

Just talk about kids work and essays and stuff like that. I mean, kids are using AI to write their papers, right?

[Randi Weingarten]

Well, some kids are.

[Al Franken]

Well, a lot of kids are, I would think. And do you go to a thing where kids are going to have to write essays in the classroom with pencil like we used to?

[Randi Weingarten]

You mean go back to the blue books?

[Al Franken]

Yeah, go back to the blue books.

[Randi Weingarten]

I think for tests? Yes, I think that. For tests or for some work. Yes. And there are lots of people who are worried about plagiarism and worried about that. I frankly worry less about this. That what I worry about. And we've seen some research on this. If you're just basically taking from ChatGPT, let's say you're supposed to do a essay for college and you're basically taking ChatGPT and cutting and pasting and that's your essay, Right. How are you thinking? How are you actually doing the assignment? How are you problem solving? How are you communicating? That's the danger to attention, that's the danger to critical thinking. So we want teachers to know enough to be able to recognize what is and what isn't happening. That's why project based instruction or experiential learning is so important, because you can actually create with a project that people are working together on teams where they are critically thinking, where they're trying to start, from the beginning to the middle to the end. Critical thinking is the most important thing we do to help kids learn. The second most important thing we do is how to create a safe and welcoming environment where kids are seen and they have agency and they feel engaged and they feel empowered.

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[Al Franken]

Can I ask you about the financing of schools? I mean how we finance public schools in this country? How much of it is property taxes and how much of it is from the government? How much is from state government?

[Randi Weingarten]

It's basically 40, 40, 10, 40% local. And this is a gross generalization. So my apologies because there are basically like 16,000 school districts in the country, but it's basically 40% is locally derived revenue. A lot of that is property taxes, 40% is state and 10% is federal.

[Al Franken]

That's the way we do it in this country and that's just the reality. So if you live in an affluent community, people vote on a funding initiative and they vote for it and they can make sure their kids school is well funded. In less affluent cities or districts, that's not the case. Is that how other countries do it?

[Randi Weingarten]

If you're talking about what is normally viewed as first world countries, no. If you're talking about Europe, just like in Covid, education was far more of a priority in many European countries than it was in America. So first education is a country wide responsibility in most European countries. In the eu, in Great Britain, it is funded through whatever the state and federal tax system is in that country. But in lots of other countries in the world, we say education is important, but it is not so important. And the UN has tried to do things to make it more important. But for years and years and years in so many places in the world, education was the province of the rich and the powerful and everyone else was left behind. And so there has been a real push internationally through the un, through unicef, through UNESCO to try to make that different. But the United States was one of the few countries in the world that believed in universal, broad based opportunity in terms of education.

[Al Franken]

It just seems still though that in our country we do have wide disparities in the financing of school districts.

[Randi Weingarten]

We have white disparities in our country in everything. And I give Lyndon Johnson, frankly a lot of credit. And I talk about him in the book, not as president so much, but as schoolteacher.

[Al Franken]

He adopted these Hispanic students basically when he was. What part of his career was he in? Was this before politics?

[Randi Weingarten]

This was before politics. He was a young teacher who became a principal in the whole country. And he saw what happened in terms of the abject poverty. And that is. We talk about Title I. That actually was the roots of why we had Title 1 as part of the civil rights laws in the 60s because of how do you start leveling the playing field for poor kids? The, you know, idea, the money for kids with disabilities and the money for kids who are poor. Those funding formulas go directly to schools for direct services for children.

[Al Franken]

Let's talk about teachers unions in states like. Let's talk about what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin in the 2010 election, right? The Republicans, this was Obama gotten in, passed the aca. There is a reaction to the ACA because people were demonizing it. And Wisconsin elected Republicans and Scott Walker became governor and he went after the teachers unions.

[Randi Weingarten]

Right, Scott Walker. Ron DeSantis. I'll go back to. Let me do first principles here. There are really, and you know this as well as I do, there are really three ways that regular folks have any kind of power. One is through education. And that may be personal in terms of, you know, as you have enough education to be able to navigate the world. One is voting to try to get people into office that are going to do what you want or need them to do. And the third is to have some economic power. And most mere mortals have economic power not individually, but through a union.

[Al Franken]

This is why one of the reasons in your book why you say they fear teachers is because they're unionized.

[Randi Weingarten]

Correct.

[Al Franken]

How many members do you have?

[Randi Weingarten]

1.8 million. We are now the fastest growing union in the AFL cio.

[Al Franken]

Okay, so this is why fascist fear features is because you're organized.

[Randi Weingarten]

Well, because we have a little bit of power. We don't have the power that Elon Musk has. We don't have the billions of dollars. But this is why they fear. And so what did Scott Walker do? He went right after teacher unions, our union. We were in the midst of a union organizing drive. We had just organized most of the college campuses of The University of Wisconsin. He took away the right to organize so that people lost the right to actually even engage with their bosses. He minimized the right to collectively bargain. You saw basically salaries go down in Wisconsin and then the next thing he did was he cut the budgets of schools all over Wisconsin. And what you saw at that period of time, I don't have the statistics in front of me right now, but your state was right next door and you saw the difference.

[Al Franken]

Very comparable states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, very comparable states.

[Randi Weingarten]

And huge difference between a state that actually endorsed and believed in giving workers power and believed in public education and what your state was doing economically versus what happened in Wisconsin. Wisconsin started going down economically. Your state went up economically.

[Al Franken]

That was the case, and that's still the case in Wisconsin. The teachers aren't unionized.

[Randi Weingarten]

We are fighting back. Governor Evers has been a terrific partner. He also remember, started as the head of public instruction in his political life. And we're slowly fighting back.

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[Al Franken]

When we talk about charter schools and, you know, financing of schools that are now. These can be public charters, right?

[Randi Weingarten]

Correct.

[Al Franken]

Tell me about that.

[Randi Weingarten]

Okay, so Al Shanker and I and our union had a more nuanced view about charters than your listeners may know. And Al, who was one of my predecessors at the aft, Al was one of the people who actually started charter schools because we've always been trying to figure out ways to ensure that parents and teachers had a voice in trying to help kids learn and that top down bureaucracy. I mean, that's why in some ways when Trump was talking about how you get rid of bureaucracy at the Department of Education, my members were like, yeah, get rid of bureaucracy. But it wasn't bureaucracy he was trying to get rid of. He was eviscerating the department, not trying to make it more efficient. But we want to be out of the yoke of bureaucracy. We want to try to see if something new can work. Charter schools were initially this Idea of try something new and if it works, bring it back to the mainstream. What then happened was that they became a competitor and they took money in some state laws from other public schools. So the kids that were going to these other public schools that money was taken from, all of a sudden, with money following the child, all of a sudden you lost the library at the school, you lost extracurricular activities at the school. So it became something that instead of finding ways to fund charters in a way that didn't do violence to the other kids who stayed in the neighborhood school, they became a competitor to the neighborhood school. And you saw a lot of Sturman Drang about them.

[Al Franken]

You worked in a charter school, right?

[Randi Weingarten]

Not only did I work, I actually started two charters. One which has done extraordinarily well and one which closed, and the one which has done extraordinarily well. Steve Barr and I started it in 2007. It's in the South Bronx. So this is a long time already. We have basically somewhere between a 95 and 100% graduation rate. It's a unionized charter school and it's doing quite well. The issue about charters are they can't take money away from other students. It can't be viewed as a competitive model. We should have a big public school choice system. We should have a series or system of lots of different either schools or pathways so that we can help kids have their purpose, meet their passion, and create all sorts of different possibilities. A lot of the reasons we don't is because of funding charters and other public schools when they were public have been put in a situation where there's been a lot of tension. On the other hand, what we've seen in places like New Orleans, you notice people don't lift up the charter school system there anymore because it hasn't done well. And all of a sudden, 20 years after Katrina, you're starting to see public schools come back in. Because at the end of the day, and this is probably the most important thing, I'll say the difference between these privatization jaunts and public schooling is that we have a responsibility in public schools to all kids and we have a responsibility to help all kids. And that's why public schools are so important, because it's for all. It's for broad based opportunity and we need the resources to do it.

[Al Franken]

Shouldn't parents have the choice of being able to find a school that's right for their kid?

[Randi Weingarten]

Yes, there should be a big public system where people have that right within a public system. The problem is when you have some that's private and some that's public. You're basically taking the money from the public system for privatization and you're defunding the public schools.

[Al Franken]

So those are different systems in different states or different.

[Randi Weingarten]

I think it's a very fluid situation right now, Al, in terms of, you know, in the last few years there's been a universal voucher system that's operated, for example, in Arizona. And as a result, even though Arizonans voted against it when there were people in the legislature that wanted to do it. And what has now happened is that so much money has been taken out of public schools, they've closed public schools.

[Al Franken]

So parents take the money and go to a private school.

[Randi Weingarten]

Well, there's voucher schools, there's homeschooling, there's charter schools, there's traditional public schools. There's a whole bunch of different kinds of schooling within the United States of America right now. And different states do different things. But what we are seeing is that if you do not actually lift up the amount of money that is going to public schooling and that's all taxpayer paid and you take that money away from public schools and you put it into voucher schools that are not regulated or that don't require all kids to go and can close when they want to close or open, you know, they can close one day and all the kids have to go somewhere else. I mean, if you do that for me, for a parent, you want to send your kid to a voucher school, you want to send your kid to a charter school, you want to send your kid to a religious school, you want to homeschool your kid, that is your right. I am never going to say you should or shouldn't do that. But for me, who represents public schools, which 90% of kids go to, I want them to have enough funding in those schools so that you could have different programs. You could have public school choice, you could have a magnet program, you could have a program for kids in special needs, you can have a program for kids for career tech ed. You can have a program for kids who want to go into the social sciences and have AP Gov classes like the ones I taught. And all of that requires money.

[Al Franken]

Can we talk about COVID and learning during COVID and did we take kids out of school too long?

[Randi Weingarten]

Yes, we took kids out of school too long and kids should have been in school. We the aft a month after Covid started, we were the first ones to put a plan together that said kids need to be back in schools. The European Countries made kids a priority, not bars, not restaurants. And the problem we had is we kept on saying, let's find the money for testing for ventilation, for the things we know before vaccines that could keep both kids and educators safe. And until Joe Biden, the money wasn't forthcoming. Now, private schools had a bunch of the money for testing, but public schools did not.

[Al Franken]

For testing for Covid.

[Randi Weingarten]

Yeah, testing for Covid. Because before vaccines, what we learned, it wasn't the 6ft or the 3ft. What we learned was if you had a combination of good ventilation and testing for Covid, you could actually keep people safe. That's what we learned by, I would say, mid-2021. And Raj Shah and I, him from the Rockefeller foundation, me from the AFT. We actually wrote an op ed in the USA Today in January 2021. This is the way you can reopen all schools. But, you know, we did not. But again, the issue in America a lot before we started with book bans and erasing history and all that, which is really very much fascistic behavior. The issue in America a lot is we don't fund all schools in a way that we can actually do the things we need to do to help all kids.

[Al Franken]

Let's talk about the things like don't say gay. And a lot of the stuff they've done in Florida, just talk about school districts or states that have taken positions that are really destructive.

[Randi Weingarten]

So now we're getting into the realm of why I wrote the book, which is why would a state basically say to a gay kid or to that kid's teacher who may also be gay, you can't put a picture of you and your husband up in your classroom. We're going to stop you from doing that. Or you can't actually answer a kid's question if the kid, you know, is raising issues about sexuality. Why? Why would anybody do that? Why would anybody try. What was going on? This is the otherizing. This is what fascistic behavior starts at. Us versus them. The us is the in crowd, the them is the outside crowd, then dehumanizing the them, then denigrating the them. This is the way fascists operate. This is the way authoritarians operate. To the point that the theme are viewed as not human anymore. And that's what. When you saw this in terms of don't say gay. When you saw the erasure of history, when you saw banning books like a book about Anne Frank or Ruby Bridges or Roberto Clemente, what was going on.

[Al Franken]

Here, why would you. Let's go through some of those books why would you ban Anne Frank? Why would you ban Roberto Clemente? What was the, what were the reasons?

[Randi Weingarten]

Now you're asking somebody who doesn't believe in banning those books. Of course I think they would ban them for the same reasons that they are against diversity, inclusion and equity. What do public schools do? What do these books do? They essentially say diversity. Understanding each other, understanding the other, not demonizing the other is a good thing. Living together. Where do we still have any kind of diverse sets of people in public schooling, in colleges. To say that that's wrong. To say that we shouldn't understand what happened to Anne Frank, to say we shouldn't understand what happened to Ruby Bridges or Roberto Clemente, to stop telling stories, which is some of the most important ways that you create trust and knowledge.

[Al Franken]

For the life of me can't understand why you would prohibit the story of Anne Frank. Well, because that is a lesson of.

[Randi Weingarten]

That that did in Texas. When light was shown on, it quickly changed its ways.

[Al Franken]

Okay.

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[Al Franken]

Now we talked a little bit about career and technical education. Launch kids into careers. Are we catching up to Europe? Are we catching up?

[Randi Weingarten]

No, I wish we were. But this is where you actually need the federal government to make some of this a priority. So you create funding just like with the CHIPS act, you create, but you create workforce pathways. So the good news is this, it is much less stigmatized today than it was four or five years ago. The bad news is there's so much that we could be doing and should be doing. And I think that this is some of the answers to actually engagement for young people. Because what career, what I've learned. Look, I'm a big believer in career tech ed. I taught in a career tech ed school when I was an AP Gov teacher. I mean I'm still on leave from that school, Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, New York. So I've been a big believer of vocational ed, of shop for a very long time. But what we've seen with modern career tech ed is that the things that actually make kids successful in life in this day and age, problem solving, critical thinking, learning to be resilient, relationship building, working, working with others, you know, work, being, being collaborative, being able to communicate, all the kind of what somebody else would say is soft skills, I think are essential skills. You learn all that in a career tech ed pathway. And if you actually have an industry partner where kids are working as interns or apprenticeships, just like in the trades, they work on the job as they're learning. Same is happening in terms of health care. Same happens in some of the new emerging work that we're doing in the chips industry. I've seen this happen in Switzerland and in Germany. Germany. What you see is that kids are excited about school, they're excited about learning, and they also have a degree or a skill or credential that they can monetize. So it's a win, win, win situation. 95% of kids who go to these modern career tech ed programs, they're not just schools, graduate from high school on time and, and 70% go on to college. So it creates so many choices for kids. I'm not saying it's for everybody, but everyone should have the opportunity to have these kind of credentials available to them and should have it from high school, not from college.

[Al Franken]

So what do you want people to get from your book?

[Randi Weingarten]

Two things. One, to love teachers. I spend a lot of time talking about people whose names people would never know. Ryan Richman, Raphael Bohem, people who are doing remarkable jobs in classrooms all the time because a, they love kids, but also they know what they're doing to actually make magic happen. This is who teachers are, and this for me was a love letter for them. But number two, it's that this is a really important what we do in the United States of America to teach kids knowledge, critical thinking, create a welcoming and safe environment. This should be revered, not reviled. And we know that this is now a strategy that's been done by the far right. But it is also a keystone of fascistic behavior to try to undermine knowledge and the pluralism of public school.

[Al Franken]

What did the project 2025 people in the education section, what did they write in?

[Randi Weingarten]

They essentially wanted to end public schooling as we know it.

[Al Franken]

Exactly. Well, the name of the book is why Fascists Fear Teachers. It was released last week and I encourage my listeners to check it out. Thanks so much, Mandy.

[Randi Weingarten]

Thank you.

[Al Franken]

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kotke. The great Leo Kotke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.