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Why Fascists Fear Teachers w/ Randi Weingarten
279 Plays2 days ago
HRP is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3), and the views expressed by our guests are their own and do not constitute an endorsement.
“Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?” The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call.” At least, that’s what Mike Pompeo, the former CIA Director and former US Secretary of State, told a reporter in 2022.
Three years later, Randi Weingarten’s rebuttal takes the form of a book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy, in which the long-time President of the American Federation of Teachers, representing nearly 2 million members, mounts a defense of democracy, teachers, and our public schools, arguing that “Public schools are laboratories of civil society and, at their best, embody the multifaith, multiracial coexistence that is our nation’s best future…Fascists fear teachers because education is essential to democracy.”
At its core are conjoined and fundamental questions I think we took for granted, until recently, as settled consensus in the United States of America: What is democracy? What is the role of public schools in a pluralistic democratic nation, and why are both worth keeping?
To help us answer these questions and understand why fascists fear teachers is none other than AFT President, Randi Weingarten.
Why Fascists Fear Teachers (AFT website)
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Transcript
The Power of Education and Democracy
00:00:00
Speaker
The way regular people have power is through education, through labor, through democracy. Be engaged in it. This is worth saving. This experiment of 250 years, which includes the experiment of public education for all kids, it's worth saving.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's not gonna be saved by itself. We need to save it together.
00:00:24
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Human Restoration Project podcast. My name is Nick Covington. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Dan Carney, Brandon Peters, and Leah Kelly.
00:00:38
Speaker
Thank you so much for your ongoing support. We're proud to have hosted hundreds of hours of incredible ad-free conversations over the years. So if you haven't yet, consider liking and leaving a review in your podcast app to help us reach more listeners.
00:00:51
Speaker
And of course, you can learn more about Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, and connect with us everywhere on social media.
Controversy: Mike Pompeo vs. Randy Weingarten
00:01:02
Speaker
Who's the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim? Is it Xi Jinping? The most dangerous person in the world is Randy Weingarten. It's not a close call.
00:01:14
Speaker
At least that's what Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director and former U.S. Secretary of State, told a reporter in 2022. Three years later, Randy Weingarten's rebuttal takes the form of a book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, Public Education and the Future of Democracy, in which the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, representing nearly two million members, mounts a defense of democracy, teachers, and our public schools.
00:01:43
Speaker
arguing that, quote, public schools are laboratories of civil society and at their best embody the multi-faith, multi-racial coexistence that is our nation's best future.
00:01:54
Speaker
Fascists fear teachers because education is essential to democracy, end quote. At the book's core are conjoined and fundamental questions that I think we took for granted until recently as settled consensus in the United States of America.
00:02:09
Speaker
What is democracy? What's the role of public schools in a pluralistic democratic nation? And why are both worth keeping? Well, to help us answer these questions and understand why fascists fear teachers is none other than AFT President Randy Weingarten.
00:02:26
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us today, Randy. Thank you, Nick. And I love your t-shirt. Oh, I wore it. I wore it just for this occasion. I was like, I got to bust this thing out. You know, Randy, I understand, you know, before becoming a union leader, you had careers as a lawyer, as a high school teacher. But when did you wake up in the morning and decide to become the most dangerous person in the world?
00:02:48
Speaker
I didn't really know that defending pluralism, ah defending democracy, believing in public education and ah supporting supporting it, strengthening it, defending the teachers that work in it,
00:03:06
Speaker
hoping all kids see their potential. i didn't realize that that makes you dangerous. I thought that actually made you a patriot. And then also that was the values of our nation, you know, never perfectly applied, but the values of our nation going back 250 years. But, you know, I guess for somebody who doesn't believe that everyone should have opportunity or that the public schools are really the public square, or it's just essentially trying to figure out how to use a cultural war to benefit themselves politically, um they would call that dangerous.
00:03:49
Speaker
guess knowledge is danger. ah And here we are.
U.S. Political Dynamics and Historical Comparisons
00:03:54
Speaker
It's January 2026. It's been a very, I don't know, interesting start to the year.
00:04:00
Speaker
You know, it's it's one thing to be able to joke about how silly it is that someone would call you the most dangerous person in the world. At the same time, we've seen in real time here how this administration treats the people that it views as dangerous. And I don't see them, you know, black bagging you and taking you out in the middle of the night. So it can't be the case that guys like Mike Pompeo really believe the literal truth of what they're saying. You've got to be a stand in for something else about either their fears or insecurities about the future or whatever. So in your words, Randy, why do fascists fear teachers?
00:04:34
Speaker
We are at and I think the beginning of this year showed this, we are at an inflection point in the United States. So I'm going to get to your question in a couple of minutes. Let me set it up this way.
00:04:48
Speaker
We're at an inflection point. And, you know, as a, in some ways, as a history and a social studies teacher, when I heard what um Trump had done with Venezuela on on Saturday.
00:05:05
Speaker
i am no Maduro fan. In fact, he lost his last election by 70% of people voted for the other person.
00:05:17
Speaker
He should not be in office. He is a dictator. But this notion of us going in and deposing him what is what The Monroe Doctrine from hundreds of years ago was all about the sphere of influence that the U.S. would dominate that sphere.
00:05:44
Speaker
The U.S. would go in militarily in Vietnam, in Korea, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. to do something to fight against communism or to fight against terrorism, as opposed to using other tools like we created.
00:06:09
Speaker
to borrow what Heather Richardson said, was you know the world order that the world created in the aftermath of World War II. I'm being this expansive right now because here it was Pompeo, who knows all of this better than I do as the former CIO director and the former secretary of state.
00:06:33
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and the And what is happening before our eyes is that the lessons that of that level of trauma to the world have been lost on Donald Trump.
00:06:47
Speaker
And what will you see in regimes that become authoritarian or fascist is that they start telling themselves a different story about a mythological past that they are trying to reclaim.
00:07:05
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And whether it is the heterodoxy of you know of of of ah getting
Education's Role in Democracy
00:07:11
Speaker
rid of or undermining DEI because there was a certain group of people who should have primacy in the country or in the world.
00:07:21
Speaker
or whether it is about America's greatness or, you know, the oil greatness or, you know, but they're telling themselves or, you know, or what what what what happens when women and ah Blacks and brown people and and and Asian people and and, I'm sorry, gay people like myself, when all of a sudden we have equal rights. So,
00:07:50
Speaker
Well, when I say we're at an inflection point, is that there is one side of this country led by Mr. Trump telling themselves a story that our greatness is seen through the lens of a past, as opposed to Our greatness being about what happens in the future and about us as a society together creating opportunity where we use our ingenuity and our creativity to make a better life for everyone.
00:08:25
Speaker
And that is the wrestle that what is happening right now. And it's very dangerous and it's very scary. And it has to be the people who actually come up and fight back against it because the political world, look at the Congress, look at the Supreme Court.
00:08:45
Speaker
They're not going to be the checks and balances that the that the founders believed. That's why the No Kings movement becomes so important. so What is part of the solution here if you actually believe that the greatness of America comes from its people who act, who have the rights, the fundamental rights of opportunity and freedom that happen in a democracy, then education is absolutely a foundation stone to all of that. So why do fascists fear teachers? They fear teachers because we have a different view of how you see a future.
00:09:27
Speaker
not through the lens of a past, but you see a future through the lens of people acting and working together to create power for themselves and their families and their country through education, through a labor movement, through democracy.
00:09:42
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and And education becomes, particularly public education, a foundation stone to that.
AI in Education: Challenges and Opportunities
00:09:48
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Fascists want the power for themselves, looking at a mythical past, the way they do it is creating power.
00:09:56
Speaker
Distrust, um and and not just distrust, distrust to dehumanization, to and the dehumanization that's so great that you see your enemies, you see the people who you disagree with as enemies that that should be crushed.
00:10:17
Speaker
that that that that and and And that's kind of the, when you see a former Secretary of State say that, that's part of this road to fascism of them saying, oh, she's so dangerous, she needs to be crushed, as opposed to, i have a really different view of who should have power in the country.
00:10:40
Speaker
I believe it should be everybody. They believe it should be this you know this particular group. of white dudes, billionaires, AI techs.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yes, and that's such a great point because along with those political threats that we've been talking about that you mentioned in the book, you frequently mentioned AI as another big force that we have to contend with. And I think most teachers agree with you on that. And um last summer, I know AFT launched or announced ah the National AI Academy um with the goal to i equip teachers with the knowledge and training to harness AI responsibly, ethically, and effectively in the classroom. How exactly how do How do the goals of the AI Academy square with the threat that um you know we all agree it poses?
00:11:27
Speaker
So, you know, there's two ways. If you are not a tech billionaire, um who wants to make a whole lot of money from AI. If you're not a guy like Peter Thiel, who sees that this is a way of creating a surveillance state.
00:11:46
Speaker
So if you're not in that category and you see that this tool is here, There's two ways, there's three ways of dealing with it. One, you ask your government, which is what government is supposed to do, to actually call balls and strikes and to create guardrails.
00:12:05
Speaker
That's what government is supposed to do. That's part of what, to create safety, create guardrails, to create a way that people can compete. government is not doing that. The federal government is not doing that. In fact, they're doing the opposite. They're basically saying it's the wild, wild west.
00:12:20
Speaker
and where're And by not creating guardrails, we are allowing the tech companies, just like they did did did with social media. So this is both Democrats and Republicans. They're allowing the tech car ah companies to actually create um great harm.
00:12:36
Speaker
So Yes, good maybe good promise, but great harm. So if you're everybody else, you can do one of two things. You can say, and look, some of my members say this, and some progressives say this, just say no.
00:12:53
Speaker
or you can try to navigate it. And I've been around long enough that I have a responsibility to try and navigate it. I am as skeptical as everybody else is, but my responsibility is to help teachers navigate it. My responsibility is to fight for AI safety.
00:13:12
Speaker
You're not going to ignore this new tool. um And you ignore it to your peril. And so I am trying to find ways not only to harness it, but to make sure that teachers have and nurses have and my members have the tools that they need to actually use it. They have the knowledge they need to use it. So that's what the AI Institute is about. At the same time, we're still fighting for guardrails. At the same time, we're still fighting for, you know, for safety rules. So we're trying to do both at the same time. But I i think it's a mistake
00:13:49
Speaker
And I've said this to our members, I think it's a mistake to pretend that it's going to go away or that by just saying no, um we will diminish the impact. I think we need people, we need educators Whether it's used in a school or not, educators need to be able to know and understand the power of the tool, both the positive and the negative. They, not just me, they need to be in charge of their classrooms. And the only way to do that is to
Abolishing the Department of Education: Implications
00:14:20
Speaker
educate them. And frankly, I wanted the tech companies to pay for some of that education. They have the tools.
00:14:25
Speaker
Let them pay for some of that education. Why should the members dues be the only thing that pays for the education? the government should be paying for it. The government should have a pot of money to deal with the transitional costs.
00:14:38
Speaker
I believe that that should happen too. But so some of this is advocacy on the outside, but some of this is I want, I believe in my members' professionalism.
00:14:49
Speaker
I believe in their power to have knowledge. In order to do that, you have to create the professional development. That's what we're doing. I think that's very clarifying. Thank you for that. To zoom out a little bit, a lot of hay has been made by this administration about abolishing the Department of Education. But here we are, we're nine months out from an executive order calling on Secretary McMahon to shutter the agency. And they keep coming up with things for her to do along the way somehow. So I wonder, Randy, what do you make of these threats? And what would the impact be um for your members, your members, schools and communities if that shuttering of the Department of Education really came to pass?
00:15:27
Speaker
So what what they're doing right now is actually pretty diabolical and and very, very, very concerning because what they're doing right now is selling the agency for parts and ah moving, transferring its functions other places to places that have actually no ability to do what Congress intended with the Department of Education. So um so they're moving all of the elementary and secondary education to the Labor Department.
00:16:04
Speaker
You tell me, i mean, I'm not sure that the Department of Education actually knew effectively the best ways to teach reading, but I certainly know it the Labor Department does not. Even on something that the Labor Department should know how to do which is career and tech education, because there should be a pathway between, you know, not not just in for adults in terms of, you know, career, occupation, and vocation. There should be a pathway from K-12, particularly from high school on.
00:16:37
Speaker
But that that was moved a few months ago and they still don't know what to do. In fact, they have really messed up the um the implementation or the execution of the laws around career and tech ed and getting the monies out. You know, simple things.
00:16:56
Speaker
The Congress has given, has it's not enough money, but the Congress appropriated, you know, millions to billions of dollars for school districts around the country for certain programs that the Congress and the president thought were important.
00:17:10
Speaker
um Career Tech Ed, ah Special Needs Kids, IDEA, Perkins is Career Tech Ed, IDEA his Special Needs, the TITLE program, the ES Elementary and Secondary Acts. So sorry for the alphabet soup.
00:17:26
Speaker
The Department of Education basically, you know, gives out and divvies out those formula funds and make sure that they're used in the way that they were intended. That's basically its purpose.
00:17:37
Speaker
Plus, you know, um the Office of Civil Rights. But what's happened is they divvied out the they they they move career tech ed to Labor Department a few months ago.
00:17:48
Speaker
And everybody is saying that it's not working. Like everybody, you know, you're supposed to get Perkins funds so that you can put this welding lab together. You don't get the funds.
00:18:00
Speaker
What are kids going to do if they don't have that welding lab? So my point is this. My union years ago, al Shanker, we opposed starting a new Department of Education. We thought it should stay with families, be kids should be with families, staying in health, education, and welfare.
00:18:22
Speaker
We lost that debate. it was moved to a new Department of Education. Then Obama moved to the Department of Education all the student loan stuff. So that's in the Department of Education. The Department of Education is like the biggest bank.
00:18:36
Speaker
So it became a political issue because Carter wanted it. Reagan didn't want it. So it became a political issue. So now what's happened is the politics is what is playing out here.
00:18:52
Speaker
And the effect is that what happens to kids. So if you fire half the people, which is what they did initially, then all of a sudden, if you're a parent, your kid is not getting a wheelchair in a school, the school district is is not paying attention to you,
00:19:11
Speaker
You know, the Department of Education was where you would go, the Office of Civil Rights, to say, my kid is not getting what they need. My kid is not getting the IEP. The IEP, the Individual Education Program, says X. She's not getting X. That was the place of last resort.
00:19:30
Speaker
If you don't have the Office of Civil Rights or if there's a backlog of 50,000 cases, that means it's not happening. If it's in student debt, there are over 300,000 people who were supposed to change to certain plans before December 31st, there's a backlog.
00:19:50
Speaker
They never got the plans changed. They never got into income of income repayment
Critique of Administration's Education Agenda
00:19:55
Speaker
plan. you know that the department that the The Trump administration said, no, the the thing you tried to create, Biden,
00:20:02
Speaker
after, you know, to about making it more feasible for people to pay down their debt, that's gone, the save plan. So they threw it out. So there are five other income-driven repayment plans.
00:20:15
Speaker
If there's a backlog, we've gone to court any number of times to try to get these reopened. Okay, we've gotten them reopened. There's a backlog, 300,000. There's nobody who's answering the phone.
00:20:27
Speaker
So if you can't get something done on your computer, Those 300,000 people are out of luck. So that's the effects of what they're doing by parsing it out. That was the effects of what they were doing by reducing staff.
00:20:48
Speaker
That's the difference. basic that so So it essentially means that government is not functioning in the way in which it's intended. My view, function over form.
00:20:59
Speaker
But there is a bigger um value statement and moral issue here as well, which is, and this goes back to the first thing we were talking about. Are we a country about our future are we a country about our past?
00:21:16
Speaker
And if we're a country about our future, You have to have an agenda as a president of the United States, even if you run no schools. And the president of the United States, the the the federal government doesn't run any schools except for the schools on military bases and some schools on Indian reservations. They never they never have. Hopefully they never will.
00:21:40
Speaker
It's different than what happens in Europe. We have a state and local system. But if you're about a country that sees its future as in front of it, that sees its better days ahead, not behind you,
00:21:58
Speaker
How do you do this with kids? How do you not have an agenda with children? How do you have an AI agenda that includes no school teachers or nothing with children?
00:22:12
Speaker
How do you not think about, if you even if you're Donald Trump and you believe in career tech ed, you do not do anything about an agenda with kids, an agenda with education. Your only agenda with education is killing the Department of Education and creating this financial disruption to undermine public education, you know, by creating competitive systems of vouchers and charter schools or homeschooling.
00:22:45
Speaker
How is that an agenda for children? That's my bigger worry. it's it's and and And then on top of that, think about all of what has happened, not just with the Department of Education, but the big tax bill.
00:23:00
Speaker
Cutting SNAP, that disproportionately hurts children. Cutting Medicaid, that disproportionately hurts children. The children's health um program. So this is an attack on children.
Call to Action for Public Education
00:23:15
Speaker
That's my issue with all of it. Randy, it's a new year. What's your resolution for public education in 2026 and beyond? And what can teachers do and what can people outside of education do who want to support it?
00:23:27
Speaker
So number one, we have, all of us have an obligation, regardless of what Donald Trump is doing. We have an obligation to strengthen, not abandon public education.
00:23:38
Speaker
Public education is the town square. Public education is a foundation for opportunity and for democracy. Kids learn the habits of democracy. That's what teachers do the first few days of class when all new kids come in to see them, to to be in a class.
00:23:54
Speaker
They learn how to get together. They learn how to deal with each other. They learn the habits of working together on team humanity and congealing society. And then they learn critical thinking and problem solving, which are skills that are really important, not only today, but for tomorrow. and and And so schools, public schools are so important because they're for all kids all over the country. So number one, strengthen, not abandon our public schools.
00:24:25
Speaker
Number two, strengthen not abandon our democracy. We need democracy in order to deal with affordability, in order to deal with every other issue that matters to families, that matters in America.
00:24:42
Speaker
We need to have a democracy, not authoritarianism. We can't slip into fascism. My book was a warning about not slipping into fascism. We and that, and and nobody's going to save us but ourselves. So my call to action is, if you can, be on the streets.
00:25:00
Speaker
Go to the next No Kings rally. Vote. Engage. The way regular people have power is through education, through labor, through democracy.
00:25:10
Speaker
Be engaged in it. This is worth saving. This experiment of 250 years, which includes the experiment of public education for all kids, it's worth saving. It's not going to be saved by itself. We need to save it together.
00:25:24
Speaker
Join union. Join a PTA. Join an indivisible group. Join a group called Beacon that my wife, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, started. Be engaged in our lives and in our destiny.
00:25:39
Speaker
And if you can, support a teacher. We just filed a lawsuit yesterday in Texas to basically say to the Texas Education Association,
00:25:51
Speaker
Teachers do not lose the right of expression when they become teachers. They have a right to express their feelings and their viewpoints privately about what happens, including what happened in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination.
00:26:06
Speaker
Please support the people who are trying to do everything in their power to help kids be ready for life, for career, for college, and to have the aspirations that they, to to meet the aspirations they want for their lives.
00:26:25
Speaker
That's what teachers do. The book is Why Fascists Fear Teachers, Public Education and the Future of Democracy. The author and of course, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Weingarten. Thank you so much for joining us today.
00:26:38
Speaker
Thank you, Nick.
00:26:42
Speaker
Thank you again and for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change. If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
00:26:53
Speaker
Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free our website, humanrestorationproject.org. Thank you.