Teachers union head: parental rights bills start wars

The leader of one of America’s largest unions for teachers said laws like the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act are “the way in which wars start.”

Teachers union head mixes it up

Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, gave her remarks on the Rick Smith Show on April 13. But the GOP War Room YouTube account posted a clip of Weingarten’s remarks Thursday evening.

In making her objections to parental-rights bills, Weingarten said:

This is propaganda, this is misinformation. This is the way in which wars start, this is the way in which hatred starts.

In the week just passed, Weingarten made a statement to Fox News in which she enlarged on this point:

Educators welcome parent involvement in schools because our kids do best when teachers, parents and caregivers work together. We have a lot to do to help kids recover and thrive this year after two years of an unprecedented pandemic. So rather than help us help our kids socially, academically and emotionally, these vocal minorities want to marginalize LGBTQ kids, censor teachers and ban books.

The phrase vocal minorities refers to outspoken parents, not to racial, ethnic, or other protected-class minorities. Weingarten did not elaborate on how bills like the Florida anti-grooming bill marginalizes or censors teachers or anyone else. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) did bar 54 mathematics textbooks that injected Critical Race Theory into their lessons. Whether Weingarten was referring to this action remains unclear.

Denial of grooming

In the same interview, Weingarten denied that teachers were grooming children in anyway. She also said the scrutiny of school curricula posed an “existential threat.” As before, the full meaning of her words remained unclear.

Separately, Weingarten suggested requiring pupils, faculty and staff to keep wearing masks until coronavirus transmission fell to zero.

About the image

Randi Weingarten attended the 2020 Legislative Conference of the American Federation of Government Employees. The image is a crop of a photo by Keith Mellnick of the AFGE. It carries the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.