AFT’s Randi Weingarten: Schools, Unions Best Agents for ‘Social Justice’
by Kyle OlsonAFT President Randi Weingarten may have inadvertantly put her finger on one of the major problems with public education today.
During an Oct. 28 forum at the Center for American Progress, Weingarten told the assembled panel that teachers unions, along with the general labor movement and the nation’s public schools, should be agents for social justice. She said “we have to do more than simply instruct children seven hours a day” and that “community schools should be the hub of the community.”
We suppose she means that our public schools, and the people who teach in them, should be actively engaged in political issues that have little or nothing to do with education – like abortion, gay marriage and the sort. That’s all fine and good, to a point. We live in a free society, where labor unions and their members can spout off about anything, just like the rest of us.
But in their zeal to use our schools as agents for social justice, we hope Weingarten and friends don’t forget that schools exist, first and foremost, to teach children. We hope AFT teachers put most of their energy into those seven hours a day when they are supposed to be instructing kids.
Test scores in recent years tell us that American students are falling behind their peers in many countries, particularly in the crucial areas of science and math. Perhaps if the AFT, one the largest and most powerful education organizations in the nation, focused more on that problem, rather than the redistribution of American wealth or the constitutional rights of transvestites, teachers and student performance would improve.
Send the right message to your members, Randi. Tell them their first priority is the academic development and improvement of their students. If the union is so concerned about creating a level social playing field for minority kids, as you claim, then you should focus on helping those kids succeed in school, so they can graduate and successfully make their way in the world.
Your way doesn’t seem to be working. While the AFT has supposedly been focused on social justice for the poor and minorities, it has continued to represent teachers, and fervently resist reform efforts, in three of the worst school districts in the nation - Detroit, Washington D.C. and New York, all of which have heavy concentrations of minority students. The dropout rate in those districts is huge, so thousands of children never get the chance to improve and ”join the middle class,” as Weingarten put it.
The AFT should give those kids a real helping hand by assisting in the reform of their schools, so they can get a quality education, or offering them access to alternative schools that are focused on learning.
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47 Comments
Teachers should teach HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
Another obummer CLOWN. Teachers should TEACH, NOT BRAINWASH. Get off the social justice kick already. We don't need your stinking corrupt thug unions either! Where do these CLOWNS come from. Perhaps ANOTHER saul alinsky SCUMBAG disciple?
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They'll need to start indoctrinating the children even younger, to be introduced to Noblama's "civilian national security force"
Randi believes in "Social and economic justice". For those who are not familiar with the real meaning behind thes favorite progressive terms, they refer to socialism, pure and simple.
We had to put up with her as the head of the NY UFT for years. She's an unbearable twit; with her, trust me, it's about social engineering.
"That’s all fine and good, to a point."
That's not all fine and good to any point if they are "actively engaged in political issues that have little or nothing to do with education" while being paid by the public to educate children. It's illegal for government employees to campaign at work or use government resources for political purposes and the same rules should apply to teachers.
Remember Hitler's Step #1…take over the school system and condition the kids to learn his ways…So, how are we going to counter-act this routine?
check this video………….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BVNN1wqw3k
I love this social justice crap. Marxist use some of the best jargon. Too bad they can't teach, I'll do my best math lesson.
Wealth redistribution +(-) Hyphenated Americanism= Social Justice – social + (0 x 0)= _NO_ justice
Public Education – Personal Responsibility (liberty x wisdom [instruction x experience]) = indoctrination
Decisions + Government Persuation= tyranny
2+2=4
"That’s all fine and good, to a point." No it's NOT. Social justice is a political agenda. Institutions that receive public money should not be pushing political agendas. She has the right to believe anything she wants as an individual, but she does not have the right to use MY tax dollars to push HER agenda on MY children.
The "social justice" of leftards means the kind of "justice" in the Communist Manifesto, not the U.S. Constitution.
check out how much these social justice Union leaders make a year……………
http://www.aftexposed.com/financials.html
social justice
Why does Justice need a tag along adjective?
hate crime
Why does Crime need a tag along adjective?
To object to either idea on the grounds of accuracy in language, is to be a racist. You've were crowded out of the conversation the minute you acquiesced to the terms!
Barak Obama is the uber union boss and as long as the democrats have the power we're going to have to listen to all this union garbage.Unions are Obama's socialist armies and most major unions in this country are on the verge of bankruptcy.Which is why they're using the democratically controlled federal government to do everything possible to try and force unionization.
You have to keep pushing back against unionization where you work and make your rep's vote no on card check.2010 is coming.
Heh. We all logged on with the same indignant attitude toward "social justice"!
Hey, wait. I was told there would be no math. . .
What does "indignant" means?
I just have an attitude!
This is the exact plan laid out by Bill Ayers in his small schools initiative. His goal was to effect massive social change by taking over the skills, and making them accountable only to small cadres of folks like himself.
It's not surprising that the AFT would make this claim, but let's draw those lines correctly.
As long as you define "social justice" correctly – keeping the slackers from stealing from the producers – I'm all for it. Of course, Weingarten and her morally bankrupt ilk define "social justice" in exactly the opposite way: Forcing the producers to pay the way for the lazy.
She "is" Wayne Rathke in drag.
Rathke in drag has no business being part of any educational system, for that matter, unions have absolutely no reason to be part of the educational system. They are dragging our education system down, as they have with all endeavors they're involved in, with unrealistic demands, demands that they know damn good & well that most school systems can't afford and for what ends, most union teachers will see little if any benefit but be sure, your union leaders pay checks greatly increase. What ends up happening, the union ends up getting a trivial pay raise for the teachers & a big pay raise for the union leaders, as soon as the pay raise kicks in, union dues go up defeating the pupose of the pay raise, taxes go up to pay for the increase & defeating the purpose of the pay raise, schools start laying off teachers & staff, education programs get cut, teaching supplies become scarce, school buildings start deteriorating, & finally schools close because of the financial costs. Sadly, teaching is one of the most respectable professions I know of & there are teachers who want to properly educate, not indoctrinate, if you are one of these start getting organized & stand for what's right not what the union says is right.
My ex is a teacher. She is an idiot. What happens when an idiot teaches? This woman is a direct line into the system of Dumbing-down the citizenry so that one can spew their vitriol and no one notices.
Back in the 70s, the New Deal was supposed to be the greatest thing this country ever did. At least back when that occurred, there was accountability and some transparency within our government……A thing of the past today.
My youngest son, a Honor Society member, could not balance his checkbook upon graduating 11th in a class of nearly 1,000. Now, as taxpayers, we much be alert to the drivel being taught in the schools today: AND we are NOT. We are too late.
I'm in graduate school right now earning a master's in education as a science teacher. Last night in one of my "ethics in education" classes, I had to provide support for my stance that more students should get vouchers to attend school of choice. Needless to say, I was alone in my belief. Despite all the empirical evidence I provided that showed that voucher students in DC have improved in test scores (albeit, slightly) and that parents and students feel more safe and satisfied, my professor continued to say that because the differences were "small", vouchers should be abolished. Typical university libs – the state is more capable to decide what your kids need than parents are.
mmm……….mmm……….mmm……………..Barak Hussein Obama
mmm……….mmm……….mmm……………..Barak Hussein Obama
Remember that little innocent NJ school ditty performed by the little "minds of mush".
Social engineering(brainwashing) at its best and orchestrated by one of Obamas long lost gal pals.
Wish I could find a link. Drat
We have given the gov too much access to our children. It's happened a little bit at a time… and now look where we are.
Schools/teachers/School admin… should be focused on acedemics like reading, writting, math, science, social studies (learning about different sociaties), geography… All else pales in comparison. Keep Social Indoctrination, Politics, etc… OUT of our schools! Eric Cantor… are you LISTENING?
She does…and it may be.
Does the constitution mention PUBLIC SCHOOLS? Who decided on PUBLIC SCHOOLS with FED. rules?
Oh it was probably back in the 60's…from whence came these creeps. My God…add Safe Schools CZAR Kevin Jennings to this toxic mix of ideologues and it is no wonder we have criminals teaching our kids!
2 women teachers were actually caught naked in a class room this week!
they are all crawling out of the woodwork, aren't they?…
And despite our horrors they are very proud of their Luciferian belief system, this drone included. Listen, remember- and then consider this…
Elections have consequences. 'Throw the bums out' is more than a mantra, it's a way of life, now…
An ignorant student makes for a lifelong Democratic voter. Emotions count, logic and reasoning do not.
My husband has been a HS teacher for 30 years and he is very conservative. The education system is not a place for a conservative. He loves teaaching but not the politics. He and some others sued the union to not have their dues given to such insitutions as Planned Parenthood. They won. It was a small victory.
Well put!
First it was songs sung by our school children praising the annointed one. (BARF).
Then it's selling merchandise to school systems with the anointed one's logo. (BARF)
Then it's a safe school czar with a PERVERT agenda that should not be near any school children. (SUPER BARF)
Now here's another example of INDOCTRINATING our school children. The progressives with their agenda won't quit until all of our children are walking around like PERVERTED-ROBOTS-INCAPABLE OF THINKING FOR THEMSELVES! Hmmm, I think they tried this in the last century at some time! What country was it? Oh, yeah GERMANY under HITLER. HOW WELL DID THAT WORK OUT? Leave our children alone. A teacher's job is to TEACH, NOT INDOCRINATE! Got it?
I am with you and your husband. I feel like a complete oddity as a strong conservative who loves her job teaching chemistry. I did the same thing to prevent the union from giving my dues (which I was pretty much required to join, despite my hate of unions) to any PAC. It's a hard battle, but worth it in the end.
It's comforting to see how many people here believe the same things as I do. We home schooled our 3 girls through high school. My good wife was the teacher, and I was the principal, a role I took seriously. When my oldest went to college, she couldn't believe that so many of the students were incapable of thinking for themselves. Just regurgitate the proff's ideas, ideals, and, bammo!, you get a degree. IMHO, it's as much our fault as it is theirs' when "we the people" allowed the few, to intimidate the many, when we allowed God to be kicked out of education. Notice I said God, not religion. Religion, of any brand, has no place in school, with the obvious exception of theological schools. God's place in our schools is simple, if children are taught about God, either at home, or church, or both, then children understand that there's something bigger than me, and you, and you or I have no right to be the center of the universe, that's God's due. Our children deserve the benefits of a classical education, with science, and math, and english, and yes, civics and government, and we and they deserve both sides of any and all issues, not just the libs side. 2010 is nearing, imho we should clean house, and start over, anyone has to be better for the nation than this bunch.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by 24thstate, Cris Angelini. Cris Angelini said: http://bit.ly/5ZPVab LEFTIST AFT’s Randi Weingarten: Schools, Unions Best Agents for ‘Social Justice’ [...]
As the late Albert Shanker, former American Federation of Teachers president, once said: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
Well, I must admit that as a Dean's List engineering undergrad, I couldn't balance my checkbook either. But that may have had something to do with not recording checks in the register…
Oh, and beer causes ink to run…..
Since nearly everyone fixates on some aspect of education that isn't the core problem, there's about a 1 in 50 chance that you who read this will get what I say here: The reason "nothing seems to work" is that elementary principles of human psychology and learning are violated nearly all the time nearly everywhere. (If it takes ten years before this is suddenly "discovered'," don't say no one told you). After twenty years working with classroom programming, I had an insight into how students are motivated–that was 17 years ago. It's taken near-disaster in education to get people willing even to listen to a different viewpoint.
I can send you a copy of my book explaining this (cf. below) if you ask for it. . If you want to discuss this, call me at 480-588-6200.
John Jensen, Ph.D
My mother taught school for 40 years 1946 – 1986 and she hated the District Administration and it's "staff" (bureaucrats) with a passion that she passed on to her kids . She believed that if your not teaching students to think for themselves and excel for themselves then you were wasting precious space in a school and needed to be shown the door. This Randi is obviously "ripe" for being shown the door.
It's a long story, but once my husband and I were in a conference with our son's middle school principal. And during the conversation my husband said, "It is the school's main job to educate our children." And the principal responded, "no. It is the school's main job to SOCIALIZE the children."
Shortly thereafter we moved our children into a home/charter school.
Social Justice =The new socialism buzz word
QUOTE : "But in their zeal to use our schools as agents for social justice, we hope Weingarten and friends don’t forget that schools exist, first and foremost"
WTF? No it's not first and foremost its PERIOD.
Outside of civics to teach kids about HOW government works, as in it's mechanics, it's not ok AT ALL to indoctrinate kids. Maybe that was not the authors intent, but I dont want anyone teaching my kids political correctness, or what to think about social issues PERIOD, that's my job.
I am so tired of this "Indoctrination Lite" ideology.
Keep 'em coming!! Maybe some teachers will start waking up. Hey…can you add the GLSEN articles to the NEA and AFT exposed sites? They both gave this group money this year and I think that story will have an impact.
Albert Shanker had his own personal GOON SQUAD ( what, you thought it was only the SEIU ? ) who threatened physical harm ( broken kneecaps; REALLY ! ), in late night phone calls ( how they got the phone numbers, I do not know ) and intimidated teachers and principals, face to face, back in the late 1960s.
Ah another loser.
Ah!!! You got that right. The union leaders make the big bucks, travel, wine and dine and give big money to their left-wing friends…..Money that they get by taking massive amounts of money in dues from teachers that make very little money to begin with. Hmm, that doesn't sound like social justice to me.
So what she is really getting at is some additional curriculum that teaches poor kids how to fill out welfare paper work. Also, anytime you hear someone use the words "Level the Playing field" this really means the productive and talented don't succeed as well as they otherwise could or should so that they don't outpace the lazy and slow so much. It's not about lifting people up, it is about bringing people down.
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