These are not normal times, and normal responses to the Trump administration will not do, the president of the American Federation of Teachers said April 7.
Randi Weingarten was the closing keynote speaker at the Summit for Religious Freedom sponsored by Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Alexandria, Va. She is a former civics teacher who has led the AFT since 2008.
“This is not going to go away unless we fight it. And even if we fight it, it may not go away,” she said. “But we have a real shot at making it go away if we fight it.”
“This is not going to go away unless we fight it.”
“It” is the Trump administration’s multi-pronged attack on public education and on the U.S. Department of Education, including a push for private school vouchers, book bans and a campaign to remove all evidence of DEI from public schools.
Americans United is particularly engaged in legal fights against Christian nationalism in Oklahoma and Louisiana and is one of multiple advocacy groups sounding alarms about the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration is trying to destroy the federal role in education and they’re being very much intentionally confusing,” Weingarten said. “They want to abolish the Department of Education even though they actually can’t. That’s Congress’ job.”
She briefly explained some of the department’s history and the Congressional role in its mandates: “Congress actually knows how to do this job of changing the department and changing its goals and doing all that. So why is the president doing that without going back to Congress? What is going on here?”
The answer, she asserted: “I suspect they’re trying to do this for the same exact reasons that we fight all the time in terms of religious liberty freedom, because there is an attempt to impose what the powerful want on children of America. There’s an attempt to say that knowledge doesn’t really matter.”
And the claim that Trump’s changes will send education back to the states is bogus, she said.
“Right now, particularly since 2015, the states basically have control over curriculum and standards and teacher certification and licensure, graduation requirements, on and on and on. Basically, most decisions affecting public schools.”
The federal government serves two primary roles, she continued: Dispensing one of every seven dollars that funds public schools in America and serving 26 million kids with special services such as after-school programs, summer school tutoring, reading specialists and special education services.
Additionally, the department’s Office of Civil Rights — which the Trump administration wants to eviscerate — makes sure students are served equally and without discrimination.
“We are fighting for the proposition that in America, if you believe in opportunity, the first thing you don’t do is get rid of the only department in the federal government that deals with opportunity for children,” Weingarten said.
“Why would you do this? Aren’t children our future?”
Even though most Americans do not understand the details of what the Department of Education does, they support it, she noted. “Over 65% of people in America, even when they don’t know what it does, say, ‘Why would you do this? Aren’t children our future?’”
She also blasted the administration’s attempt to purge DEI from schools. Last week, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a memo to all public school districts saying they would lose federal funding if they don’t certify they have eliminated all forms of DEI.
Weingarten linked that directive to news that the National Park Service has removed references to Harriet Tubman’s role in the Underground Railroad — a key part of American history leading up to and during the Civil War.
“What does that mean? Does that mean we can no longer teach about that? Does it mean a social studies teacher can no longer teach about Jim Crow? … Does it mean we can’t have a Juneteenth or a Jewish heritage celebration in June? Does it mean if there’s a book somebody doesn’t want that we’ll lose Title 1 funding? The answer to all these questions is probably yes.”
All these challenges work together, she said. “If we no longer can be inclusive in schools, if we no longer can fight these things, if there’s nobody left at the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, what happens if Texas or Oklahoma says, ‘OK, we’re going to teach not about the Ten Commandments, we’re going to teach the Ten Commandments. Who is there out there who’s going to say, ‘No, no, no, no, that’s not OK legally.”
A secondary agenda of getting rid of the Office of Civil Rights is to allow states to impose whatever discriminatory practices they choose, she continued.
“Our obligation is to actually make sure kids feel safe and welcome.”
“Our obligation is to actually make sure kids feel safe and welcome,” Weingarten explained. “Our obligation is to make sure no student feels out of place in a public school because of their religion or of their decision or their parents’ decision not to practice any religion. That’s our obligation.”
Americans United and other legal advocacy groups must stand in the gap and be ready to challenge such discrimination, she urged. “People who have power cannot be silent.”
“The only way that we actually get to keep our republic is if the people actually do something about it. … If we go to school board meetings, if we tell our stories, if we talk about what the effects of this is, if we say we need to make sure that kids are safe, … it moves people.”
In the last two years, pro-public education forces have won more school board elections than they’ve lost, she reported. “In the last election, all three times vouchers were on the ballot, they lost. Why did they lose? They lost because people want public schools. They want them to be better, but they want public schools. They want schools that are safe and welcoming for our kids. They want schools that are engaging and relevant, but they don’t want to lose pluralism.”
In closing, she issued a challenge: “What I’m saying is we can actually turn this around, but it requires the muscle of activism. It requires the muscle of connecting the dots. … We are saying kids must be free to be themselves. Kids must be free to either decide what they want to exercise in terms of religious practice or decide not to. And kids have that right with their parents, not with anybody who’s going to try to impose it.
“That is an American value going back to this country’s founding, and I’ll be damned if I let anybody take that away from us.”
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