Teacher union leader Randi Weingarten on America's education crisis: 'Teachers are now first responders to everything'

As president of the American Federation of Teachers and its 1.7 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates across the country — after years of leading the New York City teachers’ union and of being a high school educator herself — Randi Weingarten knows a thing or two about teachers.

Randi Weingarten: Teachers are now first responders to everything — school shootings, mass shootings, the Trump effect on schools of divisiveness and bullying and hateful rhetoric, the opioid addiction. A lot of these outside stressors are part and parcel of what teachers deal with, because the wellbeing of students is first and foremost. It used to be our obligation was to instruct students.

And then there is pay and other compensation. Just like for everyone else in America, soaring health care costs are stressful, even when we can collectively bargain it ... And on top of that, you have student loans. The average student loan for a master's degree in education jumped 82 percent between 2002 and 2012.

Virtually all of the [Democratic] candidates have come up with education plans. They're all focused on public education as an anchor to the democracy, as a propeller of our economy — as a way that we actually help make a difference in children's lives as opposed to lifting up charters or vouchers or whatever.

Look at Illinois, where a great new governor is really trying to get a state income tax in order to actually fully fund public education. Look at Michigan, where the new Democratic governor ran [a campaign] on its schools and the damn roads. The value system has to be real. The [narrative must change] to where public education is not only important once again, but to where people are embracing it as something absolutely vital to our society.

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