AFT's Randi Weingarten: Schools, Unions Best Agents for 'Social Justice'

AFT President Randi Weingarten may have inadvertantly put her finger on one of the major problems with public education today.

During an Oct. 28 forum at the Center for American Progress, Weingarten told the assembled panel that teachers unions, along with the general labor movement and the nation’s public schools, should be agents for social justice. She said “we have to do more than simply instruct children seven hours a day” and that “community schools should be the hub of the community.”

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We suppose she means that our public schools, and the people who teach in them, should be actively engaged in political issues that have little or nothing to do with education – like abortion, gay marriage and the sort. That’s all fine and good, to a point. We live in a free society, where labor unions and their members can spout off about anything, just like the rest of us.

But in their zeal to use our schools as agents for social justice, we hope Weingarten and friends don’t forget that schools exist, first and foremost, to teach children. We hope AFT teachers put most of their energy into those seven hours a day when they are supposed to be instructing kids.

Test scores in recent years tell us that American students are falling behind their peers in many countries, particularly in the crucial areas of science and math. Perhaps if the AFT, one the largest and most powerful education organizations in the nation, focused more on that problem, rather than the redistribution of American wealth or the constitutional rights of transvestites, teachers and student performance would improve.

Send the right message to your members, Randi. Tell them their first priority is the academic development and improvement of their students. If the union is so concerned about creating a level social playing field for minority kids, as you claim, then you should focus on helping those kids succeed in school, so they can graduate and successfully make their way in the world.

Your way doesn’t seem to be working. While the AFT has supposedly been focused on social justice for the poor and minorities, it has continued to represent teachers, and fervently resist reform efforts, in three of the worst school districts in the nation – Detroit, Washington D.C. and New York, all of which have heavy concentrations of minority students. The dropout rate in those districts is huge, so thousands of children never get the chance to improve and “join the middle class,” as Weingarten put it.

The AFT should give those kids a real helping hand by assisting in the reform of their schools, so they can get a quality education, or offering them access to alternative schools that are focused on learning.