Randi Weingarten, president and CEO of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest education union in the nation, says that her members “really don’t care” whether President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to abolish the Department of Education.
She went on to say that she was much more interested in “level[ing] up [educational] opportunities for children” than she is in supporting any “bureaucracy.”
That's interesting in that she has helped create one of our country's most powerful "deep state" bureaucracies.
The battle for our kids and our country will be underway with Trump's inauguration.
Be informed, not misled.
Everett Piper writes, "Let’s assume we can take Ms. Weingarten at her word when she says she doesn’t want anyone to have more bureaucratic control of our nation’s schools and her top priority is simply to achieve a 'level' playing field that presumably means a better education with better outcomes for all of America’s students."
He continues: "Let’s also assume that such a 'leveling' would include a review of the 'progress' American education has made not only under the influence of the Department of Education, which Ms. Weingarten says she doesn’t care that much about, but also an overview of the outcomes realized under her influence, and that of her own organization, which was founded in 1916."
In other words, what has the American Federation of Teachers done for America’s students over the past 108 years? What has its teaching and educational paradigm accomplished for our nation and schools, and what have its ideas realized for our culture?
Another way to say this is: What has Ms. Weingarten’s organization actually done for our children and our country?
The gross failure of American public education.
Piper says, "For example, for 108 years, under the direction of unions like the AFT, our schools have increasingly disparaged 'dead white European males' in our classrooms. For 108 years, our teachers have learned to pan a Judeo-Christian ethic and have praised its antithesis. For 108 years, we’ve taught one generation after another that 'it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as it works for you.'”
He continues, "For over a century, Ms. Weingarten’s educational bureaucracy has told our youth that there is a 'moral equivalency' between America and its enemies. For over a century, these bureaucrats have implied that our nation is evil and the rest of the world is right to hate us. For over a century, they’ve instructed our students to laugh at 'right-wingers' who warned of communism and government largesse. For over a century, they’ve taught that Marxism has its merits and that liberation theology is the only 'good religion.'”
For five generations, students have been told that socialism is better than free enterprise. For five generations, Ms. Weingarten and her ilk have fomented class resentment, racial animus, and entitlement. For five generations, they’ve preached that pastors and priests are stupid and that capitalism is the cause of crime. For five generations, they’ve fed our kids a diet of moral nihilism (known as sex education) and instructed our boys and girls to use condoms rather than obey God’s Commandments.
Why are we surprised by what we see in today’s news? Our judges can’t find the word “marriage” in the dictionary. Our State Department thinks the way to stop terrorists is to let criminals flood across our nation’s borders. Our current president says he appreciates the “legitimate grievances” of the terrorists who execute Jewish teenagers at an Israeli music festival, and the average graduate now thinks George Floyd was a better man than George Washington.
Why are we surprised by any of this?
Ms. Weingarten and her tribe of teachers have taught our country’s leaders to question the church and its standards. They’ve indoctrinated an entire nation of young men to believe their masculinity is toxic. They’ve brainwashed tens of millions of teenage girls to buy the lie that delusional men who dress up and act like women can steal the identity of the real women they pretend to be.
Why does any of this surprise us?
None of this should shock you. After all, it was your school that taught your kids that their sexual gratification mattered more than their character.
Ideas have consequences, and the lousy ideas Ms. Weingarten and her lemmings in the educational class have been teaching for the past several decades are bearing themselves out daily before our eyes. Garbage in, garbage out. Teach lechery, and you’re going to get lechers. Tell our kids to hate America, and don’t be surprised when they do.
Trump has promised to take back education from the bureaucrats
The Washington Times online edition yesterday said, "One of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises was to shutter the Education Department. Conservative activists say the agency has become mired in liberal politics and left-wing ideology."
Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, introduced a bill last month to “abolish the Department of Education” and redistribute its programs to other federal agencies. Mr. Trump will need the support of narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate to send the legislation to his desk after his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Several political insiders interviewed by The Washington Times predicted that solid opposition from Democrats and moderate Republicans would force Mr. Trump to settle for smaller bills offloading specific programs.
Ms. Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, said support for dismantling the department reached an all-time high after historic K-12 learning losses that were attributed to COVID-19 measures and a year of anti-Israel demonstrations disrupting college campuses.
She said Mr. Trump must negotiate with lawmakers to untether decades of federal programs from the ever-expanding department. Federal statutes immunize those programs against presidential executive orders and prevent any interventions by Linda McMahon, Mr. Trump’s nominee for education secretary.
“Ms. McMahon needs to go in there like a plumber and start banging on pipes to see what sticks,” Ms. Allen said. “Trump is the homeowner. He was elected, he has a mandate, and she can execute it.”
Ms. Allen said the Education Department’s annual budget, excluding the Federal Student Aid program, has grown from $18 billion during her tenure in the 1980s to about $80 billion today. The department has about 4,400 employees.
Ben Johnson with the Family Research Council has published an excellent, well-sourced article in which he says, "American schoolchildren’s math and reading scores saw 'a marked decline'—again—falling further behind their own scores before the COVID-era lockdowns, trailing even more foreign nations, and fueling calls for President-elect Donald Trump to reform or abolish the Department of Education."
Johnson says, "American students participate in two international tests — the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) — at ages nine and 13. American fourth graders scored 18 points lower in the 2022-2023 school year than in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic closures. Eighth graders’ scores fell by 27 points over the same period."
Takeaway
Some parental rights groups insisted it is too early to predict whether the Education Department will survive the Trump administration. They pointed out that anything is possible and pledged to fight for the votes to close it.
“Before this department was created, the vast majority of American children could read and perform math with excellence,” said Rebecca Friedrichs, founder of the educational reform group For Kids and Country and a longtime critic of teachers unions. “Today, well under half are performing at grade level.”
Johnson concludes with a quote: "It's really wonderful that we will have an opportunity to have a reset with the Trump administration, but in the end, this is a problem of education that is controlled at the state and local level in the United States. And it is more important than ever for Christians to be involved in the public school system and for us as citizens to want excellent schools.”
At the same time, President-elect Trump has vowed to abolish the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), founded by Jimmy Carter in 1979. He and others have asked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to pare back, or “delete,” the DOE, which critics view as a Democratic gift to teachers’ unions.
But in the end, no federal or state agency can simultaneously cultivate children’s God-given talents and elevate their moral character if Christians refuse to do so.
Pray for Trump's success.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.