If anyone should be able to defend teachers, it’s Randi Weingarten. She is the president of the 1.8 million-member American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, higher education faculty and staff, nurses and other healthcare professionals, local, state and federal government employees, and early childhood educators. This week, a new move by the Trump administration means that teachers are in need of defense.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced what the New York Times called “an aggressive plan to continue dismantling the Education Department, ending the agency’s broad role in supporting academics at elementary and high schools and in expanding access to college.” Some of the Department of Education’s work is being shunted to the Department of Labor—for now. The administration’s move is consistent with Trump’s plan to close the Department of Education entirely.
“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), now the Education Secretary, Linda McMahon said in a statement. She also said the changes were an attempt to “refocus education on students, families and schools.”
That’s where Weingarten comes in. Throughout her career and in her book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, published earlier this year, she’s come to the defense of public education in America. She traces the history of attacks like Trump’s in other countries, calling them hallmarks of fascist regimes. She explains that fascists fear teachers because their work creates an educated electorate that can see past propaganda and teach young people how to think for themselves. She warns of the risks in a world where teachers become the enemy. There is no one I’d rather hear from tonight as we focus on a story that didn’t get the kind of coverage it deserved during a jam-packed news week. We must pay attention to what’s happening at the Department of Education. It’s an effort to dumb down America.
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