Randi Weingarten
For the American Dream, with Randi Weingarten- Class in Session
Randi Weingarten, President of AFT, joins us to discuss the lawsuits her organization is pursuing against the Trump administration's reckless and harmful policies. She shares the deliberations she and AFT undertake when considering which lawsuits to pursue. It comes down to two simple factors. First- is the policy actively hurting people and standing in the way of people attaining the American Dream? Second- does AFT have standing to file? If so, they're suing. This isn't what AFT wants to spend their time doing. But they are advocates for laborers, educators, and so many of the first targets of this administration.
As we often discuss here at BustED Pencils, the American Dream is a fuzzy, ill-defined thing. One thing we know it absolutely requires is engagement. We must be able to engage with the difficult aspects of America, the contradictions and dark past of our great country. If we cannot, we lose whatever the hell the American Dream is.
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Class in Session- Schools, not Wargrounds, with Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten, President of AFT and a recurring Pencil Buster, joins us for this very special class in session. In the first days of his second term, President Trump's administration stripped schools of designation as ‘sensitive locations’. That means Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are no longer prohibited from arresting individuals suspected of lacking proper migration documentation in schools. This will further turn schools away from being places of learning and community and into places of fear. As President of the second largest teacher’s union in the nation, Randi put it into a simple urging: “don’t make schools a warground”. In this country of laws and rights, EVERY child has the right to go to school, decided by SCOTUS in Plyler v. Doe. Let those schools be places of growth and engagement, not fear and trauma.
BustED Pencils: Fully Leaded Education Talk is part of Civic Media. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows. Join the conversation by calling or texting us at 608-557-8577 to leave a message!
A Race Between Fear and Hope
As we continue to name this moment, conversing with Dr. Kevin Kumashiro, Bill Ayers, and Dr. Jonathan Gyurko, we turn to expert Pencil Buster, President of AFT, Randi Weingarten. We last spoke with Randi on July 19th of this year (episode available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts). So much has changed since then. When we last spoke, President Biden was still in the race for re-election, with increasingly grim prospects. Now, we sit in the aftermath of the dreaded result, Trump re-elected to the office of President of the United States. So what comes next? What do we do to meet the needs of all of us, not just a few of us, here and now? Randi helps us find what we need to fight for a better future- watch this lecture from Randi to further rally your spirit.
BustED Pencils: Fully Leaded Education Talk is part of Civic Media. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows. Join the conversation by calling or texting us at 608-557-8577 to leave a message!
