Randi Weingarten responded in this article to Trump’s proposal to arm teachers: It won’t work. Trump compared schools to airports, but the logical extension of that ill-considered proposal is that every passenger should be armed. Airports are gun-free zones. So is the White House, the halls of Congress, every federal building, and Mar-A-Lago.
Randi writes:
”There are a number of steps we can take right now — including ensuring mental health services are widely available; staffing schools with well-trained resource officers, who may be armed if a community so decides; instituting wider background checks; and banning military-style assault weapons and munitions.
“But one idea that just won’t work is arming teachers, as President Donald Trump suggested this week.
”Educators’ first instinct is to protect kids, not engage in a shootout that would place more children in danger. This good-guy-with-a-gun thinking might give some people the illusion of security, but it only would make our children’s classrooms less safe, and turn our schools into armed fortresses.
“Decades of grim data show that having guns at home greatly increases the chance of them being used in a homicide, suicide or accidental death. The United States has both the highest gun ownership and the highest gun death rate in the Western world, though the states with the strictest gun ownership laws have the lowest rates of gun deaths.
“Introducing guns in schools carries additional risks, and raises pertinent questions.
“How would arming teachers work? Would teachers carry guns in holsters, or would every classroom have a gun locker? Would teachers be expected to regularly recertify, as required of many armed professionals? Are teachers to get their guns or get their students to safety with seconds to spare after an active shooter alert? Would teachers be held liable for their actions or decisions?
“Would teachers get firearms similar to the military-style AR-15 weapons that have been used in many mass shootings, including in Parkland? What’s the risk of a troubled person attempting to disarm a teacher, and use his or her weapon? Who would pay for the billions of dollars it would take to pay for guns, ammunition and training, when so many schools currently lack nurses, guidance counselors, school resource officers and have a multitude of other needs?…
”Schools, airplanes, hospitals and federal court houses are gun-free zones. Why isn’t the president trying to keep schools this way? Why isn’t he taking common-sense steps to end this scourge? A possible reason: The National Rifle Association supports this idea and the gun manufacturers supported by the NRA would make a heck of a lot of money.
”Americans are rightly frightened, outraged and frustrated by school shootings and the unnecessary loss of life. The NRA wants Americans to believe that only more guns can prevent tragedies. That is just not the case. Since Australia changed its gun laws in 1996, it has had no more mass shootings, while there have been scores in the United States. We know how to reduce gun deaths, but who will lead the effort?”
Not President Trump. He panders to the NRA, which gave his campaign $30 million.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m glad she’s advocating for public school families, but the Trump Administration won’t take action on any of this. “Hardening” schools and the rest of the ill-considered ideas cost money, and the Trump Administration doesn’t invest in public schools.
They’re already dumping the issue back on schools. Trump was tweeting yesterday that it’s up to local schools or some such dodge.
Here’s how this works. There’s a problem in or around or in the general vicinity of public schools. All the politicians get together and “listen” – lots of media coverage, which they arrange. In 2 weeks they all decide “the problem” is the fault of public schools and can be fixed by public schools, and they all go back to working on the next tax cut.
They don’t “throw money at the problem” and they have decided public schools are “the problem”- a politically convenient dumping ground for every problem they refuse to address, from poverty to gun violence to a lack of affordable health care.
It’s easier. For them.
This, like all other US problems, will end up dumped on public schools and they’ll move on to the next “problem” which they’ll also find a way to dump on public schools.
So I think we’re probably safe from the Trump Administration’s bad ideas for public schools. They don’t do anything, good or bad, for public schools other than use them as locus of “the problem”.
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It occurred to me today. If and when you put this new “security” protocol of arming teachers in place, it will require drills on it.
President Trump thinks active shooter drills aren’t worth the time and sends the message along the lines of you may be shot (if someone could help with the quotes I’d be grateful – I know he spoke out against active shooter drills).
If armed teachers is part of the new safety protocol, then teachers will need to drill on getting the guns out and prepared in front of a classroom full of students, presumably loaded.
Think of this, your students are going to know which teachers are armed – if nothing else, because a teacher will at some point need to drill on safely and quickly getting the gun out in case of an alert and test procedures.
If your goal of arming teachers is to surprise and suppress those who who be mass shooters, showing guns to students repeatedly throughout the year seems to me to be both dangerous and send a much harsher message than giving students “active shooter” drills.
Nevermind what could happen with lots of teachers with loaded weapons out trying to manage a classroom full of students during a drill.
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If you’ve ever worked in a school, you know that students know everything. If you want to find out something, ask a student.
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Randi Weingarten is a notorious sellout. As a teacher in the trenches for 37 years I can only say that should the US Supreme Court rule in favor of Janus, the unions are going to pay a heavy price for being terrible representatives of teachers in many districts across the country. I have paid my dues for nearly four decades and the union has become a laughingstock before my own eyes.
Statewide, NYSUT stood powerless as Cuomo and the legislature imposed a terrible APPR system on us, established new pension tiers with vastly reduced benefits, eroded tenure protections and added a four probationary year for new hires, etc.
NYSUT reportedly has liabilities of about $500 million, so it has been busy running itself into the ground while also doing next to nothing for the rank and file.
NYSUT has doled out tens of millions of dollars in political contributions to the very same politicians who have repeatedly voted against our interests. These same politicians have allowed charter schools to take root in New York. NYSUT has never held any of these people accountable.
I have also grown tired of NYSUT’s constant liberal political pronouncements. They never end. Liberals like Obama, Cuomo, Bloomberg, DiBlasio and the leaders of the NYS Assembly have supported a long list of anti-teacher laws. Yet NYSUT loves them all.
Should Janus result in droves of current union members abandoning these organizations all I can say is the unions did it to themselves.
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As a retired NYS teacher, I share your frustration. Back in the ’70s, NYSUT was far more assertive. I agree that NYSUT and the UFT should have taken a stronger stand against VAM and the erroneous APPR. I now live in Florida where teachers have lost far more ground. Despite union membership, they are at will employees. They have lost ground on pensions, benefits and salaries. Despite the losses in New York, at least New York did not vote for a constitutional convention. Pensions in New York are still well funded so despite some losses, New York teachers are in a better place than those in most of the country.
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Compare NY to every other state
Compare districts with union presence in any state with those without a presence
Would you prefer no union? Or work in charters with no union?
When did this become a win-lose proposition.
Believe it or not, most professionals actually understand finding common ground and respecting the reality around them. Look at states and systems where more retired teacher in retirement system than there are teaching and district funding to contribute is running dry. That keeps salaries down to keep pension contibutions afloat. So yes, recognizing there is actual value in tiers and other changes are for the greater good.
Your union has invested millions in professional development and progressive education from which you hopefully benefitted. What’s anti-teacher about that? And, what’s wrong with self-regulation to keep standards high. Union was relentless in fighting test scores and bad research date in evaluation and you have a moratorium on that.
AND – What does your post have anything to do with the absolute absurdity of arming teachers? At least your union can afford a column in the NYT to make that case
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Your comment is total nonsense. I guess your union slogan would be: “Love us because the alternative is even worse.” That’s hardly inspiring.
Finding common ground? Everything that I mentioned in NY had to do with the union getting routed by many of those who the union contributed to. After they routed us “with heavy hearts,” the union went right on endorsing them and contributing to their campaigns.
I am far from anti-union. When I was first hired as a teacher, my local went on strike. After six weeks we were sent certified letters telling us that if we didn’t call the central office and indicate we were coming to work on the following Monday we would be permanently replaced based upon seniority. I hung tough with my union and was “permanently replaced.”
So Mr. “Wait What?” I am in no mood for a lecture from you or anyone else about supporting the union. I’m the most militant guy around, but unfortunately, NYSUT and many of the NYS locals are increasingly wimping out. Even in NY, with what you consider to be a monolithic union we have hundreds and hundreds of charter schools and a governor who no too long ago declared war on public education and teachers.
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Fed Up Teacher,
The first year I taught in New York I also went on strike for twelve weeks. My first check arrived in March due to the Taylor Law. NYSUT used to have more clout in those days as well because there were more union workers in general. Union membership has declined to about 11-12% nationally and will go even lower if unions lose in the Janus case.
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Wait, What?: ” Look at states and systems where more retired teacher in retirement system than there are teaching and district funding to contribute is running dry. That keeps salaries down to keep pension contibutions afloat. So yes, recognizing there is actual value in tiers and other changes are for the greater good.”
…….
Illinois is adding tiers for new teachers that will pay less when they retire. There are going to be a lot of poverty level teachers in the future. We only get enough Social Security to pay for Medicare. Or, hopefully will pay for Medicare.
Illinois is run by a wealthy Repuglican governor who absolutely refuses to let any tax increases affect his wealthy friends. Illinois needs a progressive tax and needs to tax corporations at higher levels. There also needs to be a tax on financial transactions. The state has constitutional obligations to fund our pensions and hasn’t done so for years and years. Now, teachers are the problem and are robbing the state with their excessive greed.
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The Trump Administration proposed about 40 million dollars in federal funding to address the effects of opiod addiction in public schools.
It’s nothing. Divide that up in the states where public schools are bearing the ENTIRE burden of this HUGE problem and it is a joke. It doesn’t come NEAR to what would be required to actually support them.
Donald Trump RAN on this. It was supposedly very important to him. It’s not “very important” to him. If it were important he would propose some money for it. He didn’t.
They have no intention of addressing any of these problems, as long as there’s a public school anywhere to dump them on.
They’ll go out and scold public schools with what they “should” do about gun violence and then move on to the next political problem. That’s the extent of the support. Another stern lecture from people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
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N.R.A. Chief, Wayne LaPierre, Offers Fierce Defense of 2nd Amendment…NYT
Mr. LaPierre leveled a searing indictment against liberal Democrats, the news media and political opportunists he said were joined together in a socialist plot to “eradicate all individual freedoms.”
Mr. LaPierre,“History proves it. Every time in every nation in which this political disease rises to power, its citizens are repressed, their freedoms are destroyed and their firearms are banned and confiscated,” he said, reading slowly and deliberately from his prepared text…
Ms. Loesch, who just hours earlier had appeared subdued as she spoke softly in defense of the N.R.A. at a contentious forum in Florida hosted by CNN, reverted to the caustic, insult-lobbing persona she has cultivated on NRATV, where she is also a host.
Speaking before Mr. LaPierre, she called for more guns in schools, denounced the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as political persecutors and accused liberals of trying to sabotage the existing background check system for gun purchases.
Ms. Loesch also blamed James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director fired by President Trump amid a dispute over the bureau’s investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians, for indirectly causing the Parkland massacre.
“Maybe if you politicized your agency less and did your job more, we wouldn’t have these problems,” she sneered.
Ms. Loesch also saw fault for the shooting in the news media, saying killings were always good for business. “Many in legacy media love mass shootings,” she said. “Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media in the back.”…
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When in doubt, to alleviate any responsibility, blame the media.
That is what Trump teaches his acolytes
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Not President Trump. He panders to the NRA, which gave his campaign $30 million.
That payola needs to be repeated over and over again, and for every member of CPAC and cCongress, and ALEC who has been military-grade weapons to civilians.
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So Randi is supporting, promoting and participating in the national day of action, right?
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All of the major education groups are actively supporting the April 20 National Day of Action.
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Weingarten’s statement typifies her method of argumentation, which includes giving immediate credence to her opponents’ worst ideas. For example, when she’s supposedly arguing against “choice” (a code word for privatization) she starts by saying she wants every child to have choice (the choice to have a great education). Allowing the opponent frame the discussion is her specialty–and that, among other reasons, makes her a poor advocate for teachers.
Here she does the same thing. Instead of rejecting the wrong assumptions of the NRA, she’s willing to concede the possibility of an outrageously stupid policy and quibble about trivialities: “Would teachers be required to regularly recertify?” As usual, she concedes the frame of the argument to the opposition.
In the case of charter schools and bogus accountability, she actually has sided with the opposition on many occasions. In this case, her opposition to Trump’s stupid plan is tepid at best. “Who will lead the effort?” Apparently not the AFT.
Meanwhile, if you check out the Mic.com Twitter feed you can watch a video showing why one gun owner gave up his AR-15. He says he was influenced by the Parkland kids. I’d say those kids have already done more to advocate for children in a few days (with no resources) than the AFT has done in decades (with hundreds of millions in dues money). Instead of quibbling over the details of a bad idea, they’re pretty much conceding nothing. That’s what teacher unions should be doing.
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She learned her approach at Cornell ILR school, which teaches people to be mediators, not advocates.
A union head should be an advocate above all else
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Mediator Randi Weingarten: “Introducing guns in schools carries additional risks, and raises pertinent questions.”
Advocate: “Arming teachers and/or administrators is a very stupid idea and is simply unacceptable”
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Thanks for that clarification.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Mr. Trump’s suggestion is one to which most teachers object. While it might sound good it basically says that the solution is more guns, the very thing which is so central to the problem. Apart from enriching the NRA, it suggests transforming the school mentality into something which most people, intuitively, do not wish for; a place for the storage and protection of guns. At some point the children will be aware of the guns at their schools, increasing their tolerance for guns.
How could more guns in America solve a problem of assault weapons in the wrong hands, is difficult to understand. That the President, or a President, should suggest that, when families are in pain, over losing loved ones so suddenly and brutally, shows a lack of heart for the people who are grieving. “You should have protected yourselves.”
Guns are instruments of death, and the assault weapon is a particularly devastating one. The Charleston shooting should have resulted in people arming themselves in Churches all over the U.S. Yet in the process of doing that church members necessarily adopt a different state of mind; we will kill you. Church members would all take their guns to church? What would they have become in the process. What if they were to then spend money on practicing gunmanship, with, of course, the intention to kill a possible shooter. That is a fearful state of mind, and it is that which we are afraid of, and possibly transmitting it to young children.
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“We know how to reduce gun deaths, but who will lead the effort?”
Not Trump
Not the GOP
I’d be turning over turds looking for the truth hidden beneath them if Trump or the GOP claim they are doing something
The new definition for lies and corruption = Trump and the GOP
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The Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper and other sources have reported that as many as three more armed sheriff’s deputies may have waited outside the school shooting in Florida because they could tell from the sound of the AR-15 weapon that they were outgunned.
So, what if those deputies had also been armed with AR-15s — would that have resulted in something better than the slaughter that happened, or would the slaughter have been even worse? New York Police Department data shows that even its well-trained officers are only 18% accurate with their guns when they are under fire and worried about being hit. Imagine a shooter and police inside a school, each blasting away at each other with rapid-fire AR-15s whose .223 military bullets are designed to go right through walls, doors, and desks? Hundreds and hundreds of such bullets flying through a school, going through walls and doors, floors, ceilings and desks. What would the aftermath of such a firefight look like? How would police officers feel about the fact that perhaps some or even many of their own bullets killed or maimed children?
“More firepower” isn’t the answer.
Perhaps the most telling comment about the Florida school shooting was Trump saying that we have to “harden the target.” Think about it: That comment legitimizes the concept that schools and the children are a target for guns and whatever other weaponry this devolves into. It places the emphasis on the “target” instead of on who’s doing the targeting and on the weapons they are targeting on our nation’s schools. That’s a cynical tactic for diverting attention away from gun control.
And if school “targets” are hardened, shooters will in turn harden themselves with military vests, helmets, etc. Schools will become bloody war zones like those we see in Syria and other places.
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There is only one way to deal with a situation with this — a first-rate sniper, one-shot-one-kill, that has to find a higher location but for this to work the angry, hate-filled lunatic doing all the shooting with the AR-15 has to cooperate and stay in one location out in the open or in front of windows when inside, where there are plenty of high buildings around for the one-shot-one-kill sniper.
Then there is this: Sniper shortage: Too many Marines are washing out of sniper school.
Even the Marine Corps is having trouble finding enough qualified one-shot-one-kill snipers.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2017/03/05/sniper-shortage-too-many-marines-are-washing-out-of-sniper-school/
Becoming a one-shot-one-kill sniper is not easy and most of us don’t have what it takes.
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IMHO there’s a simple explanation for the NRA wanting to arm teachers, a thing that will do little to make schools safer. America has millions of guns, but they are by no means evenly distributed. Most sales are to existing gun owners. Market saturation is occurring. Even gun hoarders have limits to what they can do, guns ain’t cheap! Basically, arming teachers opens up a new, virgin market for the gun industry, not just for gun sales but for all the training, certification, ammo, accessories and whatever else they can pile on. And even if they succeed, it will not stop any but the most foolish of school shooters. Anyone with anger management issues, which is the primary cause of this latest horror, will simply not go into the school they target but open fire from a distance on crowds going into or out of the school. After putting all those useless guns in the classroom, or even just on a few of the staff that fail to stop that type of attack, will the terrorists at the NRA then demand schools be issued rocket launchers to take out the shooters with? Make no mistake, this is all about market share for the gun industry and political power for the NRA, not one thing else.
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Give the devil his due… instead of the NEA and AFT mobilizing in support of some common ground on gun control they are mobilizing in opposition to an irrational idea promoted by a group that wants to see every American armed… Here’s hoping the NEA, AFT, NSBA, AASA, and national PTA can devise a common sense set of standards that they can support and use those standards to issue a “report card” on prospective candidates in 2018… I have to believe there are more Americans interested in safe schools than there are Americans interested in “supporting the 2nd amendment”…
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“Airports are gun-free zones. So is the White House, the halls of Congress, every federal building, and Mar-A-Lago.”
Not to mention state buildings. At least that’s how it is in TN, while we are forbidden from posting “No guns” signs on public college campuses.
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I think, it is quite futile to deny the fact that gun-full zones can be a deterrent for attackers. The price we pay, on the other hand, is tremendous: gun-full zones (even if concealed weapon zones) make most of us threatened as if we were in the middle of a battleground. Luckily, mass shootings and terrorism affect a small part of society while making schools (and federal and state buildings) gun-full zones would install paranoia in most people, especially in kids.
Am I still too much of a European for feeling creepy instead of secure when I see a policeman coming into Starbucks with his shiny handgun proudly shining on his side?
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Máté Wierdl: “Am I still too much of a European for feeling creepy instead of secure when I see a policeman coming into Starbucks with his shiny handgun proudly shining on his side?”
……..
I previously mentioned about reading a comment in the Idaho Daily Statesman written by a gun carrier who was proud to be wearing his gun and how people would see and admire it. He’d wear it going into grocery stores. I would feel creepy having anything to do with this ‘average’ man who needs a gun to feel worthy. HIs penis envy is on the wrong item. YUCK!
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Here is, again, Andy Griffith, on the right attitude about carrying a gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fer9ql7itc
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And here’s Marco of Willbury:
“I carry a gun because I want the people of Willbury to fear me”
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