Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers president, is known for her over-the-top antics in front of a microphone and an audience, and she didn’t disappoint during her July 16 arm-flailing keynote address at the AFT national convention.
After accusing the Trump administration and the Supreme Court of fascism and stealing our freedoms, Weingarten said those enemies have “enormous power” but the “power of the people” belongs to the public school teachers who belong to the AFT, she said.
SPLC influences teachers with 'Learning for Justice'Chris Woodward, AFN At the same time public education is already accused of shifting from teaching to indoctrination, a left-wing organization is influencing the teachers in the classroom. Alabama-based Souther Poverty Law Center claims its “Learning for Justice” teacher training program, which it has offered since the 1990s, is currently used in classrooms in 38 U.S. states. The curriculum is written for all grades, kindergarten to high school. Sheri Few, president and founder of United States Parents Involved in Education, tells American Family News the topics discussed aren’t a surprise. "The topics are anti-racism, Black Lives Matter, gender ideology, queer theory, white privilege, white supremacy, whiteness, and transgenderism," Few said. Southern Poverty is currently in the news after the Department of Justice alleged SPLC has been secretly funding the dangerous far-right white supremacist groups it has monitored for years. In April, the SPLC was indicted on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information. |
“That’s not a mere slogan,” she yelled from the stage. “The potential to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together to bring about change — real, lasting, life-improving change,” she said.
A review of Weingarten’s keynote address by AFN showed the 4,500-word speech mentioned Trump 14 times, mentioned fascism four times, and mentioned democracy 22 times. The word “reading” was mentioned twice, with neither reference related to classroom learning. The words “math” and “test scores” were not mentioned, according to a word search of the transcript.
Reacting to Weingarten’s speech, Tina Descovich of Moms for Liberty told American Family News the union president covered a lot of topics but educating children was not among them. That is a big clue about the AFT’s priorities, she said, when only one-third of U.S. fourth-graders can read.
Descovich said the national teachers unions have distracted from the educational process for years. “Their mission isn't necessarily to help students read, unfortunately. It’s their working conditions.”
Elsewhere in the speech, Weingarten announced a “Democracy Defenders” program that plans to recruit 5,000 new members to protect “voters’ rights” at the polls.
Reacting to that voting rights initiative, Descovich pointed out that is nothing but a political agenda. The powerful teachers’ unions use their funds and organizing power to support Democrats who use their public office to support the unions.
“Most moms just send their children to school to learn to read and write, and do art, and learn about the good, the beautiful, and the true,” Descovich said. “They are not seeing a reflection of that from the teachers union, which has millions of members.”
