National Union Leader Says 'Demonization' Of Teachers At Heart of Kansas's Struggles
For the past seven years, Randi Weingarten has led the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers' unions in the United States.
In an interview with KCUR, she discussed what may be behind the persistent teacher shortages in Kansas, the politically tinged process to rewrite Missouri's learning standards and a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court that could forever alter how unions like hers do business.
But first, what are your reflections on the departure of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan? He's been in that position nearly as long as you've been in yours and you've crossed paths frequently.
I think it's a mixed bag. Arne is a great person and his soul is really with kids. In Obama's second term, they did some really important things with early childhood education, career-tech education, teacher and principal leadership and focusing on equity to level the playing field for poor kids.
But in the first term, they picked the wrong strategy, the one that fixated on testing and sanctions instead of supporting teachers, parents, and kids. As a result, the gold-standard NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores have flattened, parents are frustrated and teachers are demoralized.
There does seem to be rising momentum against the Common Core standards championed by Duncan. Here in Missouri, the Legislature this year defunded Common Core and teachers have gotten together recently to rewrite the state learning standards. How do you see this political situation from your vantage?
Common Core standards got conflated with testing. People don't think about the standards as what kids need to learn and know how to do. They look at them as a way to measure how they or their child did on a test, as something that is going to National Union Leader Says 'Demonization' Of Teachers At Heart of Kansas's Struggles | KCUR: