Teachers’ union convention pushes for radical, liberal policies

The nation’s second-largest teachers’ union is once again promoting liberal, far-left policies at its national convention. 

Speakers at the American Federation for Teachers (AFT) event, held…

The nation’s second-largest teachers’ union is once again promoting liberal, far-left policies at its national convention. 

Speakers at the American Federation for Teachers (AFT) event, held in Houston, Texas, especially targeted school choice programs they claim will “destroy public education.” 

These programs typically allow low-income families to use educational savings accounts to pay for educational expenses, including private school tuition, and allow students to escape poor-performing public schools. 

“The voucher push is about destroying our public schools and weakening our democracy,” claimed Josh Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University. “For people like Betsy DeVos, it’s not about results for kids and families. It’s about a right-wing agenda where billionaires get what they want and everyone else is on their own.” 

AFT President Randi Weingarten called school choice advocates “billionaires and extremists,” sharing images of people including school choice advocate and policy expert Dr. Corey DeAngelis, former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and former president Donald Trump. 

“And for all of you who live in states like California, Illinois, and New York, and you think it can’t happen here, these billionaires and extremists have their sights set on you, too,” she claimed

Others, such as U.S. Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia, D-Texas, described conservative policies to restrict sexually inappropriate content as “book bans” that need opposed. 

The union, which makes virtually all of its political donations to Democrats, also predictably endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.  

Harris, who became a presidential candidate this month after President Joe Biden was seemingly forced to withdraw from the race by his own party, also spoke, criticizing various conservative policies such as those in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. 

“There are those really trying to take us backward, and I’m sure you’ve seen their agenda: Project 2025?” Harris said. 

“They even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start, which of course would take away preschool for hundreds of thousands of our children.” 

A Heritage X account for Project 2025 debunked many of Harris’ arguments, made by many other left-leaning groups and individuals, who together are attempting to demonize the project and conflate it with Trump’s own policies as a campaign tactic. 

DeAngelis also criticized various speakers throughout the convention. 

“Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates just spoke at Randi Weingarten’s convention,” he posted to X. “She sent her son to a private school after calling school choice racist.” 

DeAngelis also reminder his followers that Kamala Harris once bragged about threating parents for not sending their kids to public school. 

“Kamala Harris: ‘I decided I was going to start prosecuting parents for truancy.’ Then she laughs about it,” he posted.