Kamala Harris proved yet again that America’s largest teachers’ unions are not organizations dedicated to children’s academic excellence but arms of the Democratic party. Speaking at the American Federation of Teachers conference on July 25, 2024, the presumed Democratic nominee for president first thanked her “friend” and “advisor” to the Biden administration, Randi Weingarten.
Amid President Biden’s exit from the 2024 race, legacy media are racing to erase unflattering characterizations of Harris from their archives. GovTrack recently scrubbed from the internet its rating that called Harris the “most liberal” senator. Beyond Harris’s authoritarian embrace of court-packing, illegal student loan bailouts, and banning fracking, her consistent cozy relationship with a union head who lobbied to lock kids out of school during the pandemic should be disqualifying.
“The whole ecosystem of…AFT members, it is you who have taken on the most noble of work which is to concern yourself with the well-being of the children of America,” Harris said. “I thank you also for your support over the years and for being the first Union to endorse me this week.”
Except, the AFT and other teachers’ unions have proven that children’s welfare is not their priority. It’s not fair for the AFT to invoke “it’s for the children” as its raison d’etre when the cameras are on, and then scheme with the federal government behind closed doors to deny them essentially two years of critical in-person instruction. During COVID, Weingarten aggressively promoted school shutdowns, only reversing course once data exposed that they contributed to widespread learning loss. She then attempted to rewrite history by claiming that the AFT advocated school reopenings. Since Harris participates in identity politics, she should be reminded that minority children fared the worst from the union-manufactured school disruption.
“And while you teach students about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history including book bans…,” Harris said. “Just think about it, so, we want to ban assault weapons and they want to ban books. Can you imagine? All the while these extremists also attack the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. They passed so-called ‘don’t say gay’ laws.”
If the subject of “book bans” ever makes it to a debate stage on the 2024 circuit, former president Trump should expose the great literature that Harris and the AFT are fighting so hard to keep in the classroom. One of the treasured works that PEN America said was “banned” in 26 different instances is Gender Queer: A Memoir.
To stand in solidarity with the courageous parents who’ve spoken up at school board meetings, Trump could read an excerpt. I’ll spare you the details, but they involve graphic sexual descriptions.
Harris mentioned nothing in her speech about improving math and reading scores among America’s youth or restoring them to pre-COVID levels of academic proficiency. Instead, she waxed about the moral imperative of stopping Trump and Republicans from taking obscenity out of the public school library. Then she repeated the lie that Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law means the disenfranchisement of gay teachers. In reality, the law simply sets common-sense limits on what children can be taught concerning gender identity and sexual orientation.
“It pains me so to think 20 years later that there are some young teachers in their 20s who are afraid to put up a photograph of themselves and their partner for fear they could lose their job,” she said. “And what is their job? The most noble of work, teaching other people’s children. And God knows we don’t pay you enough as it is. In this moment, we are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms.”
Harris as president will ensure the teachers’ unions have outsized influence over Department of Education matters. That means that for another four years, public schools will be bastions of social justice and progressive ideology.