The president of the nation’s largest teachers’ union is facing ridicule for delivering an unhinged speech featuring screaming and banging on the podium, which critics likened to a scene from The Office.
The National Education Association’s (NEA) President Becky Pringle took to the stage at the three-million-member labor union’s annual representative assembly in Philadelphia over the weekend to give an aggressive, screechy speech about needing to “win all the things.”
“Keep going, NEA, to preserve our democracy! We must win all the things,” Pringle yelled, while smacking the podium and waving her hands through the air.
“Our students are depending on us to win all the things,” she continued, while continuing to chant, “All the things! All the things! All the things!”
“We are the NEA!” she shrieked several times.
Pringle, a Democrat who was an adviser to former President Barack Obama on “Educational Excellence for African Americans,” shocked people with her rant as clips began making rounds on social media:
In the full speech, obtained by Fox News, Pringle spoke about transforming the American educational system into a “racially and socially just and equitable system”:
To unite not just our members, but the nation to reclaim public education as a common good, as the foundation of our democracy, and then transform it into something it was never designed to be—a racially and socially just and equitable system. We worked hard to rid ourselves of a tyrannical, deceitful, and corrupt White House, but the reality is that the seeds that were sown during that horrible season continue to germinate.
We are the ones who help shape the heart of this nation’s hope and dreams. We are the ones who hold steadfast to the belief in the plausibility of the possible. We are the heirs of all who did this work before us. We must keep going. NEA Delegates, we can do this work. We must do this work.
X user @amuse placed a video of Pringle’s speech next to a scene from NBC’s hit comedy The Office, where the character Dwight Schrute gave a similarly-aggressive speech which the writers patterned after Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini:
“Blood alone moves the wheels of history!” Schrute said in the episode, while hitting the podium and making wild gestures as Pringle did. “It has been a lifetime struggle. A never-ending fight. I say to you, and you will understand that it is a privilege to fight! We are warriors!… Rise and be worthy of this historical hour! No revolution is worth anything unless it can defend itself! …We must never acquiesce, for it is together, together, that we will prevail!”
School choice activist Corey DeAngelis also poked fun at Pringle with an edited video of her shouting in front of a hellish background:
“These power-hungry control freaks think they own your kids. They’re in a cult that worships government and detests parents,” DeAngelis told Fox News. “It’s time to defund teachers unions and allow the money to follow the child. Becky Pringle pulled a Dwight Schrute. She is off-the-rails and desperate to maintain control over the minds of other people’s children.”
Nicki Neily, founder and president of the nonprofit group Parents Defending Education, pointed out that Pringle had failed to mention student learning loss during her nearly half-hour-long address: