The Patriot Post® · School Choice 'Undermines Democracy,' Whines Weingarten
How is giving parents a choice about where to send their child to school “undemocratic”? Well, if you’re Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, “undemocratic” simply means not conforming to public school “uniformity.” Yet the current public school system also forces kids and families to remain trapped in failing schools and thus deprives students and families of a valuable educational experience.
Weingarten, a teachers union boss, has had a steadily declining reputation since her disastrous “leadership” (read: interference) during COVID. It was her dictates and coordination with the CDC that kept schools closed and facilitated the largest learning loss in public school history. Weingarten infamously tried to downplay her involvement … then justify her choices after undeniable proofs came to light.
What this all boils down to is that teachers unions work for themselves, money, power, and — on the rare occasion — the teachers they represent. They do not actually care about the students their choices affect.
Never was this more evident than in Weingarten’s infamous remarks that recently went viral on social media. She uttered them in October, but they have only now been making the rounds — and for good reason.
In her fervor to criticize Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, City Journal writer and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, and activist Corey DeAngelis, Weingarten declared that school choice — what the above three advocate for — undermines democracy, civil discourse, and pluralism.
She said: “They have not one thing that they offer as a solution other than privatizing or voucherizing schools, which is about undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism because 90% of our kids go to public schools still. They just divide. Divide. Divide. Divide.”
🚨Randi Weingarten says people who want to let families choose where they send their children to school are attacking our democracy:
— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) December 18, 2023
“[School choice advocates] have not one thing that they offer as a solution other than privatizing or voucherizing schools, which is about… pic.twitter.com/EP4mQ1Kpq0
The irony of her statement was entirely lost on her. She is the type of leftist ideologue who thinks anything that she likes is inherently democratic and anything she doesn’t like is a threat to democracy. That said, school choice does threaten something: the power of the teachers unions.
Weingarten also argues that school choice puts an end to civil discourse and pluralism. There is precious little civil discourse or pluralism in leftist-controlled government schools. Both of those imply a diversity of thought, opinion, and exchange of ideas, while public schools are increasingly a breeding ground for Marxist-driven leftism and anti-American sentiment. (Not all public schools and certainly not all teachers, but the majority of them would fall under this category.) Public schools are like the planet of Camazots from Madeleine L'Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time where all the kids are forced into uniformity of thought, with no hope of escape or a better future.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson seems to be taking Weingarten’s cries and applying them to the city’s school children. In the name of "equity,” he is ending selective enrollment processes for high-achieving schools — and going back on a campaign promise in the process. In other words, he is ending school choice options in Chicago, ensuring that kids in bad neighborhoods are trapped in failing schools. This action is trapping students in cycles of poverty, and more opportunity is a value for which Johnson purports to advocate.
Parents and school choice advocates aren’t putting up with this nonsense from Weingarten (and, by extension, Mayor Johnson). Parents recognize the value of having government money follow their child and not a school. It’s their child who is getting the education, and if the school is not doing a good job, that child’s money should be taken elsewhere.
Considering the learning loss and the abysmal testing scores that have been coming out in the past few years, parents should have even more opportunities to put their children in situations where they can succeed academically.