The leaders of America’s two largest teachers unions, which fought to keep public schools closed during COVID and have pushed to bring radical leftist ideology to the classroom, spoke at the final night of the Democratic National Convention Thursday.
American Federation For Teachers president Randi Weingarten claimed that former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance “can’t claim they’re pro-child while gutting funding for public schools,” and that “being pro-family means we support access to good union jobs, affordable housing, health care, and higher education.”
Weingarten, who claimed last month that Trump was an “existential threat to democracy,” heads the nation’s second-largest teachers union. The labor leader has come under fire in recent months for asserting that she fought to keep schools open during the coronavirus pandemic, when in fact she did the exact opposite. Weingarten in 2020 called the Trump administration’s push to reopen schools “reckless,” “callous,” and “cruel.”
Though research showed as early as 2020 that children could safely return to the classroom, teachers unions fought to keep schools closed. School closures caused significant learning loss across the country, studies have shown.
Joining Weingarten on stage was National Education Association President Becky Pringle, who told the crowd in Chicago that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the best hope for American students.
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“They will strengthen our schools, support our educators, and help our students live into their brilliance,” Pringle said, hours before the vice president is slated to officially accept the Democratic presidential nomination. “Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are not just wrong — they’re dangerous,” Pringle said.
Pringle last month was slammed for delivering a “totally unhinged speech” in which she said “we have to transform” the public education system “into something it was never designed to be — a racially and socially just and equitable system that prepares every student!” A known partisan, Pringle heads the nation’s largest teachers union, which in 2022 gave $1 million to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) re-election campaign.
Whitmer was one of several Democratic governors who pushed to keep schools closed during COVID. She was joined in those efforts by Walz, who as Minnesota governor instituted some of the nation’s strictest COVID lockdowns.
Walz, who in March 2020 established a hotline and encouraged Minnesotans to snitch on neighbors who violated lockdowns by attending worship services, kept schools closed and mandated students wear masks well into the COVID pandemic. Critics challenged those restrictions in court, though the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled they were constitutional.
Pringle pointed to Walz’s work as a public school teacher to underscore her claim that the Harris-Walz ticket is the best thing for American students.
The Daily Wire reported this week that Walz has made misleading claims about winning “teacher of the year awards,” just days after he caught flak for making similarly misleading claims about his military service and his wife’s use of in vitro fertilization.
The Harris campaign has emphasized Walz’s work as a teacher, though his positions on education as governor have come under scrutiny. As governor, Walz signed legislation requiring that Minnesota public schools put tampon dispensers in boys bathrooms, and slammed school choice as a “scheme” that “leaves our teachers in the lurch.”
