Teachers' union head Randi Weingarten wants to keep schools open -- and American democracy alive
NEW YORK CITY — A single word is all that's needed for teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten to describe what worries her most as American children return to school for what will be a third pandemic year: “Everything.”
It may not be an especially encouraging admission, but nor is it exactly a surprising one. Teacher shortages, learning loss, curriculum wars, the lingering fear of the coronavirus and the ever-present fear of school shootings are just some of the challenges educators, parents and children are confronting as summer turns into fall.
As the head of the American Federation of Teachers, with its 1.7 million members and immense sway within the Biden administration, Weingarten knows she’ll face especially tough scrutiny if the 2022-23 school year is marked by disruption and disorder.
“I wish I had 10% of the power and influence attributed to me,” Weingarten told Yahoo News in a wide-ranging conversation at a coffee shop near her upper Manhattan home on a late August afternoon. “You have 50 million students. You have 16,000 school districts. You have thousands of people making decisions.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/teachers-union-head-randi-weingarten-wants-to-keep-schools-open-and-american-democracy-alive-090024746.html