USPIE blasts teachers’ union president for backing failed government education system

Randi Weingarten wants to keep children trapped in a failing system directed from Washington through an agency that has no legitimate constitutional basis, and which exists to promote a collectivist worldview.

 As the Trump administration ferrets out wasteful and ideologically toxic federal spending by the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies, the leftwing teachers’ unions are out in the streets with other leftists yelling, “hands off!”

One of the loudest voices on behalf of the out-of-control agency is Randi Weingarten, longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, and second second-largest teachers’ union in the United States.

In an op-ed for Fox News, she said she is appalled by the Department of Government Efficiency’s recent moves to downsize the Education Department and cut millions in grants. She insists that America’s schools cannot function without money and guidance from Washington.

This is a way of saying — wink, wink — that only the elites know what’s good for us and our children.. Pampered union leaders think that parents, communities and states are simply too stupid to govern themselves, especially those that bitterly ‘cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,’ as former President Obama said.

Weingarten wrote of Trump: “His decision to gut the Department of Education—the only federal department dedicated to educational opportunity for all students in America—isn’t about control, efficiency or even test scores. It’s about redistributing money and opportunity from the many to the few.” These comments come as Weingarten collects over $500,000 a year from the union, more than 8.5 times the average teacher’s salary.

This is nonsense. Randi Weingarten wants to keep children trapped in a failing system directed from Washington through an agency that has no legitimate constitutional basis, and which exists to promote a collectivist worldview.

“Federal funding is not used to impose any curriculum or ideology—that’s actually not allowed by law—and those laws and norms shouldn’t be broken, regardless of who is president,” Weingarten wrote.

She knows full well that the department has issued thousands of grants aimed at enforcing LGBTQ+ ideology, among other leftist causes. Weingarten apparently does not trust the states to fairly use and distribute tax money without federal oversight, contradicting her point that the money comes with no directives.

Besides, the very existence of a federal Department of Education is questionable, given that it is not an enumerated entity in the Constitution. America’s founders could not possibly have imagined that the document they crafted so well and at such great cost would be used later to justify this centralized power grab over children’s education.

To hear more from USPIE on the constitutionality of the Department of Education and why education should be returned to its proper local roots, click here to listen to USPIE’s podcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few.”