AFT LEADER BLASTS POMPEO’S ATTACK ON TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS
In response to the attack on her and teachers unions, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten responded forcefully to the slander by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that she, not any of the world’s dictators is “the most dangerous person in the world.” In an interview with Semafor, Pompeo claimed that teachers’ unions are the most dangerous because “the filth they they’re teaching out kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing.”
“We fight for what kids and communities need,” Weingarten responded. In contrast with Pompeo who ran errands for Trump, pleasing dictators around the world, she said, her union fights for schools “that are safe and welcoming where kids learn how to think and work with others” and “against this kind of rhetoric and hate. Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America.”
Pompeo’s attack is another shot in the right-wing assault on public schools, teachers’ unions and inclusive curriculum. Across the country, they are campaigning to impose broad censorship of curriculum and books that do not reflect their view of the world and attacking teachers and school employees who do not reflect their thinking.
