Open the link here to read Randi Weingarten’s speech to the AFT Convention.
Here is a summary from the AFT:
Weingarten’s State of the Union address zeroed in on the three crises facing America—a public health crisis, an economic crisis and a long-overdue reckoning with racism. She detailed how these crises are being made worse by President Trump and emphasized the urgency of the November elections, not only to defeat Trump but to elect Joe Biden and reimagine America.
“Activism and elections build the power necessary to create a better life, a voice at work and a voice in our democracy. Activism changes the narrative, elections change policy, and, together, they change lives,” said Weingarten.
Weingarten honored the 200 AFT members who have died in the line of duty, and the hundreds of thousands who have protected, cared for, engaged and fed our communities during the pandemic. But those efforts have been met with reckless inaction by the Trump administration and some state officials who have failed to provide either a plan or adequate resources as community spread has skyrocketed.
While safety and education needs are front and center in many of America’s 16,000 school districts, and states such as New York have curbed the virus and published strong reopening plans, Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have embraced virus denialism and waged a weekslong campaign to force reopening with threats and bluster.
In her speech, Weingarten unveiled a resolution passed by the AFT’s 45-member executive council backing locally authorized “safety strikes”—on a case-by-case basis and as a last resort—to ensure safety amid the absence of urgency by federal and some state officials to tackle the coronavirus surge.
“Let’s be clear,” Weingarten told delegates. “Just as we have done with our healthcare workers, we will fight on all fronts for the safety of our students and their educators. But if the authorities don’t get it right, and they don’t protect the safety and health of those we represent and those we serve, nothing is off the table—not advocacy or protests, negotiations, grievances or lawsuits, or, if necessary as a last resort, safety strikes.”
Weingarten said the union’s members want to return to school buildings for the sake of their kids’ learning—and the well-being of families—but only if conditions are safe. And that requires planning and hundreds of billions of dollars in resources the Senate and the administration have refused to provide.
Given that America is facing a public health crisis, it’s good that the DNC platform committee just voted against Medicare for All.
Wouldn’t want millions of Americans without health insurance to be covered at a time like this.
Right. And unemployed people don’t need weekly income either, so I’m glad Democrats aren’t holding a hard line on that.
The Battle of the Ed
In Battle of the Ed
Ed U. Cate will win
Cuz Ed U Tech is dead
An Ed that’s wafer thin
“Nothing’s off the table”
Nothing’s off the table
Except the eating fare
And left is just the fable
That leaders really care
Given that America is facing a public health crisis, it’s astonishing that any person who supports Medicare for All would have their 2nd choice being that if they can’t have Medicare for All, they would rather cut Medicare and end Obamacare and just let everyone buy health insurance on the private market, with no regulations.
Thankfully, most progressive are like Bernie Sanders and AOC — they have enough concern about the most vulnerable Americans that they understand that there is a much better 2nd choice — expanding Medicare benefits and expanding healthcare coverage for all Americans — and that 2nd choice is much, much better than the 2nd choice that the Republicans are offering which is to simply cut Medicare and end Obamacare and just let everyone buy health insurance on the private market.
The DNC platform expands health insurance for all and is an incremental move toward Medicare for All.
Randi Weingarten and the UFT aren’t supporting every thing I want exactly the way I want it. I can still support the teachers union because they are clearly supporting many things that the haters of teachers unions want to end. On the other hand, I could be like those who only focus on the negative and I could denounce the union and make sure to vote against any politician that supports the union so that the politicians who want to crush the teachers’ union forever will be empowered to crush it.
I don’t think anyone here would advise me to only focus on what the teachers’ union is not supporting instead of what they are supporting that I agree with. I doubt anyone here would advise me that as long as there is something that the union is not supporting that I want, then I should denounce the union and make sure to help elect politicians who would destroy the union altogether. I doubt if anyone would tell me that the best way to make the union give me 100% of what I want is to empower those who want to crush and defeat the union and destroy the union altogether.
“it’s astonishing that any person who supports Medicare for All would have their 2nd choice being that if they can’t have Medicare for All, they would rather cut Medicare and end Obamacare and just let everyone buy health insurance on the private market, with no regulations.”
What’s truly astonishing is that anyone with a brain would read that into my comment.😀
mea culpa. I feared a repeat of 2016, when a few people were so focused on the progressive ideas that the democratic candidate did not support that they voted against that candidate and and thus empowered a right wing demagogue who possibly has set progressive legislation back a decade or more and enabled a neofascist quashing of progressive dissent! Scary times.
I want a Medicare for All plan. But I’d much rather have an expanded Medicare and expanded Obamacare with a public option — an improvement over what we had in 2016 and a HUGE improvement of what we have under Trump – than I would have the Republican version to privatize Medicare altogether. How about you?
or: why we know that even while big change is coming in November, CRUCIAL change is still a no show
Will Weingarten authorize strikes for when huge percentages of unionized teachers jobs vaporize into thin air as states “rethink” education and adopt more online ed. tech?
She’ll probably just want a seat at the table for those talks.
America’s public school teachers are at an existential crossroads. Online/virtual education is evolving aggressively just as it is also becoming normalized. This pandemic is a godsend to Ed tech, privatizers, and the politicians and the politicians that feed off of them. We had better watch out. We also want to maybe think about the consequences of more semesters of us helping evolve it and helping it gain normalized status nation-wide. I for one am very hesitant to embrace a fall semester online because of these reasons.
“Union leaders vs Rank and file”
We need a place at the table
To get a decent deal
We’ve always been at the table
Because we’ve been the meal
Ah, perfect timing. My mom just shared this with me: https://www.cmstevensmary.com/post/note-from-the-principal-this-fall-your-classroom-will-be-equipped-with-a-lion?fbclid=IwAR0tmnuXH4jpNOev4VAPGDJa7fUV-2eJN_5PiviYZrqzEkez22Zg8kBaYUs
Forget predatory lending, now we have predatory governing!
🦁’s in the Classroom
Keep your distance!
Keep six feet!
Else existence
Will be meat
Wow, SomeDAM!
Weingarten and the AFT do not have the power to authorize a strike or walk-out. Only the local teacher association can strike after a vote from its membership. The AFT will support the teachers if it is felt by a majority of teachers that the working conditions are too unsafe. If a district calls for a strike, the AFT. UFT or NYSUT can send advisors to help guide a resolution of the issues. The AFT will have teachers’ backs in any necessary job action, but it cannot lead a strike.
“The AFT will support the teachers if it is felt by a majority of teachers that the working conditions are too unsafe.”
I hope that’s true. During the wildcat strikes it was the AFT and NEA running around telling the teachers to get back to work.
On the other hand, parents are sick of edtech
I don’t know how thorough that is nor do I know what that means politically. What I DO know is that this is a huge moment for Ed tech and Governors and legislatures will certainly take any “its working!” message from any teacher or district as a siren call to go all in. They will market it as a way to chop tons off of school taxes, thereby decimating whatever anti-Ed-tech Parent coalition may have existed. Normalization of Ed. Tech/virtual learning is happening as we speak, routinely by teachers who say it can and has “worked for them.” Its potential impacts are devastating to organized teachers….leaving aside the impact on students. We are barreling head long in to “can’t go back” and at the same time giving up the shop. No middle ground there unfortunately.
Yes. You are correct, Diane. Parents sure are sick of edtech.
Kids are sick of edtech, too.
The kid across the street hates online school. Her parents cannot make her like online school. She used to like school.
I just read the statistics on poll of student options for the coming year in a neighboring district here in north Florida. Parents could choose in person, remote or virtual learning. With the remote choice one class will be live streamed to students’ homes, and parents are responsible for picking up and dropping off work. Not every option works for all parents as some parents have to work, and some do not have the technology. The vote was split between in person and remote, but there were very few that selected virtual. It seemed that parents understood that on-line services are a waste of time. This vote was in about twenty-five elementary schools in Pensacola, and in each school there were maybe twenty to thirty students that selected virtual instruction in schools that had about 500 to 600 students.
Retired teacher, you’d think such decisions would be in the hands of govt, taking the lead from public health recommendations, not parent druthers, right? WHO recommendation for reopening is 5% or below positivity rate for 14 days. Escambia County was there through May, but rose above it again in early June. They’ve been hovering between 12-13% this whole month.
I’m very nervous about FL’s cavalier attitude toward covid. Because I’m (fingers-crossed) soon heading for annual MA vacation. My state (NJ) is at 1.45, MA holding at 2.45 for now. Looks safe enough but there are so many dang snowbirds who switch back to Cape Cod in July/ Aug. Among them are friends I’m in touch w/ who are quarantining since arrival, but I worry all are not so conscientious.
You must have noticed that the public conversation has gone in the opposite direction. Politicians are so anxious to have the working public’s babysitter back that they’re actually bad-mouthing remote, computerized instruction left and right. They’re extolling the virtues of in-person teachers to guide students through curriculum. They’re calling digitalized programs depersonalizing, lacking the stimulus of social interaction. Pointing out that most students don’t learn on their own very well.
That doesn’t mean that someday– when we “get back to normal”– state pols won’t once again be pushing to stack kids in front of monitors, “guided” thro “personalized learning” programs by 1 para for every 50 kids [as long as it’s “in-person” 😀 ]. But in the plus column, we’re building a phalanx of working-at-home parents who’ve seen just how bad those programs are. If we ever “get back to normal,” those folks will see through the “personalized” sales pitch & demand their ouster from the in-person classroom.
Meanwhile, I say strike [not literally] while the iron is hot. But strike if necessary. The public has suddenly realized they need teachers for “babysitting” in a very real economic way, that’s worth paying taxes for. Better yet, a portion of them are waking up to the value of teaching by teachers.
So hold their feet to the fire: if you want us in the classroom, TAME THE VIRUS. It’s questionable whether any number of $billions makes in-building teaching safe when the virus is rising all around us. Schools aren’t grocery stores where your undistanced transactions are limited to a few minutes in the aisles or at the checkout of a huge, high-ceilinged space. The safety value of masks, plexiglass barriers and sanitization goes down for every minute a group of 10-15 are together in some old bldg’s closed room. Unless community spread is down to a trickle.
Resisting online instruction for fear the corporate hw/sw cabal will take over public education makes no sense [especially compared to the alternative!]. The longer kids have to stay home, the sooner the public will get that return depends entirely on their participation in flattening the curve. Meanwhile, their appreciation of real live teachers will grow. That will only be enhanced by observing the Herculean efforts of teachers making lemonade from lemons as they expand videoconferencing, personalize at-home work, find more ways to reach struggling students and provide needed connection tech.
Please don’t walk into the president’s trap. Don’t even hint at a last resort strike.
The president is why schools can’t open. This virus is still rampant and the president is holding schools hostage if they don’t reopen. HE is the reason schools can’t open safely. Don’t let him and his news machine shift the blame.
Don’t give his base, suburban folks, rural folks any other place to blame – – or worse – – don’t give him and his mini-me congressman the opportunity to blame teachers.
Protest, pressure policy makers and budget makers, demand every possible safety measure – – but use the “S” word and all those people who are see his president willing to risk their children will turn on the teachers and he again becomes their hero.
For any parent or student ask, “Why aren’t we in school? I can’t take another day of online classes!” the answer is one response and only one: The president.
If he had listened to experts, taken action, and used the bully pulpit to get people off the streets and wearing masks, hundreds of thousands would never have gotten ill, the spread would trending way down, and kids could be in school – safely.
If he hadn’t baited the no-maskers to march on the state houses to “re open” – his red states would not be red virus leading states with spikes
And, he’s so self-absorbed, he doesn’t realize that it is HIS BASE that is getting sick.
His base loves him, but their kids and grandparents come first. HE is the reason those kids are not in school and the elderly are at risk. Leave and broadcast wide that spotlight on him!
A study published in JAMA on Monday of a 100 people who have recovered from Covid-19 showed major heart damage in 78 percent of them and inflammation of the heart in 60 percent of them due to blood clots in the heart caused by the disease. The hearts of these recovered persons looked like those of people who had had heart attacks.
Reopening schools to in-person instruction right now is insane. There will not only be a massive surge in infections leading to death because of the impossibility of social distancing in schools, but there will also be these major, widespread long-term, negative consequences of the damage done by the disease, which could result in more death, by an order of magnitude, than we’ve seen from the disease itself.
I don’t want people saying, later on: Oh, but we didn’t know. We do know, and what we know is really disturbing.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/health/covid-heart-damage-two-studies/index.html
Thanks for staying on top of the research, Bob. I went to the link expecting the 100 subjects to be elderly, &/or that these were patients with severe symptoms… NOPE on both counts. Age range 45-53yo. And 67 of 100 recovered at home, w/mild symptoms [a few were actually asymptomatic], yet look at those results.
I think you overstated it – 78% had ‘some type of cardiac involvement’ (not ‘major heart damage’), but the ongoing cardiac inflammation seen in 60% can certainly lead to weakening of the heart muscle if left untreated – seen also w/some other nasty viral infections like Epstein-Barr. Yet here we see it occurring even among patients who recovered at home w/mild symptoms. The implications could be enormous. Hopefully more & bigger studies are in the works already.
I’m so worried about this, Ginny! I think we’re heading for a catastrophe.
I think the AFT is striking the right tone. Strike support on a case by case basis depending on health conditions. This is in contrast to national calls with lots of conditions, some unrelated health, and that have health expectations that might be impossible to achieve for years.
The worst scenario is for private schools and charters to safely re-open in areas with low virus and public schools dig in and stay closed. All of the support for public schools and their teachers would disappear in a moment. And that is exactly what Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos and Jeanne Allen are hoping for.