For the American Dream, with Randi Weingarten- Class in Session

This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.

Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,

educated educators talking education.

Yeah, that's what we do here.

It's Busted Pencils fully-ledded.

Education talk, educated educators talking,

education class is definitely in session,

Johnny and Jess.

Hey, not a long introduction needed,

but we are so happy again to welcome back

President A. F. T. Randy Winegarden

in the House, Randy. How are you doing, Randy?

You know, it's spring in Washington, D.C.

But Sherry Blossoms are out, you know,

the weather today is fine.

And you know, the world is in total and complete chaos

because of our current president.

But other than that, life is just peachy keen.

Well, we were talking, yeah, I know.

I mean, I mean, I mean, it's just, it is, it feels really surreal.

Let me just say that.

It's, it's the fire hose, right?

I mean, it just keeps coming.

We were talking to, you know, Andrew

before the show started and just 10 different lawsuits

currently right now, trying to push back

on executive orders and all of that.

And, you know, it's said really, you know, excited.

I know some people were, were really happy to hear

that particularly on the student loan

to have that income driven repayment kind of reestablished.

So thank you, AFT.

You're welcome.

So look, every lawsuit, I mean, let me, let me be as simple as I can,

which is people want a better life.

They don't want a worse life.

They didn't want their lives to be more chaotic.

They wanted their lives to be less chaotic.

They didn't want more cruelty.

They wanted to actually have, you know,

good jobs, good wages, good schools, you know, decent,

social security, decent healthcare, decent retirement

security, and be safe in their neighborhoods,

and be safe, you know, and so it's not just schools being safe,

but be safe.

It's not so, it's not a lot to ask

to have access to the American dream.

And what's happened instead is that this administration

is all about money and power, their money and their power,

and trying to undermine anybody else who believes

anything different than them and create lots of, by EO,

executive order, you know, it's not governing.

It's not legislating.

It's just dictating by executive order,

and a lot of people are getting hurt by it.

And, you know, and so what we've tried to do

in terms of lawsuits is we, our through line has basically been,

if it's in our space and people are getting hurt,

whether it's our members or kids or families,

and we have standing, and we think it violates the law,

then we're going to sue.

So, and that has meant we're suing a lot.

And so, you know, and some we've gotten preliminary injunctions already,

like, you know, we sued to stop Elon Musk and Doge from,

I like calling it dogey.

Insta-dogey?

Dogey.

We sued Cip because, you know, it's a hard G.

So, let's call it dogey and said doge.

So, we sued Musk and Dogey to actually stop

getting personal information from, you know,

people who are borrowing, who are student loan borrowers,

or people who are trying to apply for financial aid for their kids.

And we also are part of the AFL suit,

a part of a bigger suit on stopping them from having financial information

from, you know, people who receive social security or who pay their taxes.

So, those we've gotten preliminary injunctions for,

the one on, on, on, on student loans,

where the application does disappeared.

Like, it's done, it's gone from the website.

So, if you're trying to go to college right now

and trying to apply for a student loan,

no, you can't.

If you are a public service loan forgiveness person,

and like you've paid nine years and eight months,

and you're trying to see if you're near the end,

no, sorry, you can't, you can't get any information,

you can't mow heel on, give you information,

Department of Education won't give you information.

So, and I can go on on, if you're trying to get into an income

repayment plan because the save one has now been ruled on constitution.

No, you can't, time's up.

So, you know, they just made people's lives miserable.

So, we sued, and we in the student debt borrowers collective,

and the, you know, the justice department couldn't,

didn't have a good reason to the court.

So, they said, okay, well, at least put the application back up.

Okay, that's good.

And then the, the bigger suits, you know,

we're suing because Columbia lost $400 million.

And our members are like, wait a second.

Of course, take on anti-Semitism,

but don't do McCarthyite tactics and take $400 million away.

And, you know, don't, and we sued on the February 14th

letter, which basically said the dear colleague letter

that in the guise of getting rid of DI basically said,

you can't teach history.

I, you can't teach about the Civil War.

You can't teach about Jim Crow.

And, you know, and then we also said, okay,

you can't abolish the money that, that kids get all across the country

in Title I and in IDA.

So, this is what we've been suing on.

I mean, that's more lawsuits than I think I've ever taken

as a lawyer, as a unionist, or as a teacher.

But it's, the through line is, is always,

somebody's gotten hurt.

So, we're suing.

And I don't mean to sound so, you know,

sarcastic about it, but like, give me a break.

Right.

Nobody voted for Donald Trump

so that he could take student loans off the website.

So, 45 million people would be affected.

Come on.

Johnny, yeah, appreciate that work.

And big shout out to, not just the work you're doing, Randy,

with the AFT, but all the, you know,

all the supporters out there who are part of the AFT.

And, you know, always excited.

We are chatting before the show about the continued,

you know, high number of support of people in this country

who are supporting unions.

I mean, it is important.

Like, I mean, we're not being sarcastic about it here

or making light of it.

It is really a through line for most families in this country,

you know, families are being heart hurt.

Children are in, you know, in schools that aren't safe,

that aren't as quality as they should be.

And our government, no matter what,

who's in charge of it,

should be taking responsibility for that.

So, appreciate that work and all those listeners out there

who are big supporters, you know,

you're part of the majority in the United States, right?

Now supporting labor unions, you know,

on that, on that notion too, Randy,

you've said something here,

I'm busted pencils that resonates with me

and I continue to hear from teachers

and families out there across our country

is that, you know, they really relate to,

you said, no, no government should ever make

the classroom a battleground for their political agenda.

And I think that continues to be sort of another way

to think about these lawsuits is,

why so many lawsuits?

Well, it just shouldn't be

that we make our classrooms a battleground

for political ideology.

And so I would like to ask you to speak to our listeners

a little bit about that too.

How you continue to support,

let's not make our classrooms battlegrounds

for these, like you said, really non-issues.

Right.

For our country, they shouldn't be.

Our majority of voters out there have said loudly,

you know, we should have good, strong public schools.

Right, look, I, schools are about several things.

We are really about trying at our core.

We are about trying to educate kids

so that they can navigate a very diverse global world

where hopefully they have the skills and knowledge,

the tools that they need.

So they can actually get to some of the things

that they need.

So they can actually get to secure their own American dream,

whether that is, you know, how they succeed in life,

career, college.

And hopefully, like every founder wanted,

they would be involved in civic engagement.

Now, what's political about what I just said?

American values, they're important American values.

They're pretty, I think they're pretty patriotic.

And, but what's political about that?

And so that's our job, you know,

where the rubber hits the road is that

there's a lot of diverse classrooms

with people of different cultures.

And if you're gonna make everyone

of different cultures feel comfortable

and feel safe and feel welcome,

you gotta deal with all those different cultures.

You can't say there's one culture and not other cultures.

You wanna make people feel welcome and safe.

And I would just say the same, you know,

in terms of kids from different backgrounds

or kids whose parents may be gay

or, you know, not straight

or kids who are trying to find themselves

or let's say, you know, teaching the history

of the United States of America

and making sure, you know, some of it is controversial.

Some of it is conflictual.

The best teachers understand how to help kids

get through the conflict.

You don't get through the conflict by avoiding it,

by pretending it doesn't exist.

Kids become stronger if they learn critical thinking,

if they discern back from fiction,

if they can become problem solvers.

So when somebody starts creating distrust

of anything I've just said or making it political,

it's not, we don't teach kids what to think.

We teach kids how to think,

but to teach kids how to think

and to teach kids knowledge, there are some things

that are gonna be different

than what somebody's political norm or cultural norm is

or, you know, the way in which they wish history was.

And so when all of this becomes political

or becomes a cultural battlefield,

we're doing a huge disservice to our kids

because what we're basically saying is,

okay, we're gonna avoid this stuff.

How do you do that?

How do you then help kids if you avoid this stuff?

And that's, and so once, you know, if somebody could,

I can't imagine, given how I just talked about it,

that somebody would say that that was political

or that was a Marxist ideology from a lunatic lefty.

I mean, so what happens is the smear campaign

and the distrust is to create division

instead of what school should be,

which is the place that unites people,

the common, you know, the community,

the common good, the public good.

What's, it's the framing to, you know, no, no, India,

because what you said is, it's the framing too

that, you know, that somehow, you know,

teaching critical thinking, you know,

we put it out there and most people, you say,

my neighbor would say, well, absolutely,

that's what schools should be doing.

Nobody's against that.

But what, instead though what my neighbor hears

is that schools are involved in teaching anti-American facts

and values and things like that.

And you're starting to go like, okay, that, you know,

making the statement when somebody says,

I don't want anti-Americanism taught

and people are like, well, yeah, I don't want that either.

And so how we get out there,

and this is where I say, you know, with AFT

and supporters of public education,

this is that I think sometimes we forget

that what we're trying to say is that,

actually thinking, critical thinking, that's American.

That's what it means.

Yeah, you know, so it's pro-American.

It is pro-American.

Look what the founders, the founders.

And look, we did some really bad stuff in the Constitution.

The three fifth compromise was pretty bad.

But think about who, you know,

think about who the founders were.

They were saying, England, King George,

no, no, no, no, we want our freedom from you

because we want to have a voice in our,

in how we govern ourselves.

We don't want to have taxation without representation.

And they were willing to go on a war to be free.

And so how do you not teach the revolution now?

You know, I think the three fifths compromise is terrible.

And it was then after Civil War of the Constitution.

But what, where I'm saying is that

the level of propaganda to try to undermine

and create distrust of people

who are some of the most trusted people

in society teachers, right?

It's intentional.

It's intentional to undermine public schooling.

It's intentional to undermine the public square.

It's intentional to undermine the community.

It's intentional to try to have people

at each other's throats to have to create fear

instead of creating pluralism

and a sense that we're all in it together.

And so we're in the middle of that fight right now.

Yeah, we think about that, you know,

and well, it's 10 minutes ago.

And Randy, it reminds me so much of,

we say, you know, it's political in that,

it's supporting democracy and public education,

you know, is political in a sense,

it's an insurance on a strong democracy.

And that is, you know, a core democratic value

is patriotism while, you know, being a student

teaching in our schools is an act of patriotic,

you know, service to the democracy.

That's not to Republicans or Democrats,

it's to all the common good,

the civics of this country, the strength of this country,

rests on, you know, our education system.

So if my nature is political in that,

in the sense that it's not divisive, right?

It's really, yeah.

Johnny, I think you're making a really important point.

But what is, in some ways, still stunning to me

is that this notion of democracy,

which is basically at the heart of the last election, lost.

Yeah.

And it lost to the price of eggs.

Now, the price of eggs are really important.

And people's primal needs and feeling like they can get ahead

is pretty much the most important way that people vote.

But what we lost in 2024 was what used to be

both Democrats and Republicans and independents

used to say that the democracy

was a key foundation stone in our country.

And I think that we've lost that.

And in fact, there are a whole lot of people around Donald Trump

that don't care about democracy, you know?

You've got a whole lot of people who, you know,

believe that Orban or that there should be, you know,

that the strong man is the way to go.

And so I think we have a lot of work to do

to actually both meet people where they are.

Not, not, not, I mean, telling people that they're wrong

is not only bad politics, it's really stupid, dumb and bad.

And I'm tired of people hectoring other people.

I mean, we have to meet people where they are.

And we have to actually fight to actually deal

with people's core anxieties, which are,

can we have a better life for our kids and our families?

And then also proves to people that democracy

is a key ingredient together.

Yeah, Johnny, nice.

Oh, I mean, I absolutely love that point, Randy.

Thank you for making it because we've said it here before.

We said like, hey, democracy went into the ICU.

We experienced a big loss, not as just an election,

but as a democracy.

And when democracy is in on life support, right?

It is up to us and work like the AFT is doing, Randy,

you and all of your peers are working hard

and so are all those teachers and families out there

in this country to support democracy and to be clear about it.

We will continue to support democracy.

Public education is a better off of it.

But like you said, Randy, it experienced a huge hit.

Right.

It's in the ICU, it's on life support.

So let's pull it out of life support,

strengthen it any way we can appreciate that.

I think if I may make one more point as I see the,

which is that we have to actually,

just like great school teachers meet kids where they are

because it's what's heard, not what's said,

we have to make the case that democracy is the way

in which people have a voice in their lives.

And a voice in their lives,

their lives, collective voice in particular,

is a whole lot better in terms of getting to the American dream

than relying on a strong man who one day may be in your corner

and the next day will not.

And so that's the case we're going to have to make to people,

but it means talking with people.

Yeah.

That's it, too.

And we said that, but the pencil is talking to our neighbors

because we know our neighbors actually

are in favor of these things.

They want democracy, they want voice,

they want to be a part of the American dream.

They just want to make sure that that dream is something

they can continue to have every night.

So Randy Winegarden, thank you so much

for busting pencils with us.

Thank you.

I always loved being with you guys.

Ah, thanks.

And now it's time for your moment of Zinn.

Before I became a college professor,

I was a shipyard worker.

Before I was a writer, I was a warehouse worker.

But whatever I did, I was always a member of a labor union.

Thank you for listening to Busted Pencil's class in session

with AFT President Randy Winegarden.

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