Head of the Nation's Largest Teachers' Union: "The Future of Everything" Hinges on 2016
With the national debate over education as contentious as ever, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, is poised to play a major role in that raging debate.
The NEA represents 3 million instructors at the elementary and secondary school levels, as well as higher education faculty, "education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers."
During an interview with Mic, Eskelsen Garcia — the first Latina to lead the NEA — spoke passionately about how education affects the life of the nation in terms of the economy and social justice — and who she thinks would do the best job.
(The questions and responses in this transcript have been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Mic: I understand you're supporting Hillary Clinton for president. Why?
Lily Eskelsen Garcia: What impressed us with Hillary Clinton was her lifelong commitment to children and education as a social justice issue. It's amazing just to look at this race, because you look at the Republican side and who's left standing, and for us it's really quite frightening, because [of] the whole blame game of "If there's anything wrong with the world, it's because of teachers, it's because of public education." You don't like the weather, you know, blame your third-grade teacher for it.
So they have these very unsophisticated lines that they'll throw out, and we know part of that obviously is to detract from the agenda that we have. And the agenda that we have is to support elected officials — local school board members, your governor, your senators and the president of the United States. Everyone has a little bit of something to do with what's going to happen for that student. Whether that's whether they have access to preschool or access to higher education.
So for us — and because you mentioned the social justice aspect of education — we've hit a horrible milestone: Last year, for the first time in the history of this country, the majority, 51% of American public school students, qualified for free or reduced lunch, which means they come from financially struggling families. It could look on the outside like a perfectly nice middle-class family whose mom lost her job or whose dad is working two jobs at minimum wage, who haven't had a raise for five or six years, and so they can't keep up with putting gas in the car. They might still have a car, but they can't put gas in it.
What happens in that school is the ultimate community social justice cause, and we take politics very seriously, because politicians have so much to say about what we'll be able to do for our students."
Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi, has said one of her top issues would be school choice if she became first lady. That means vouchers?
LEG: You have such a divide: Here's the interesting part. You know, on the Republican side, it's all about privatize, standardize, de-professionalize. How do we get cheaper teachers in there and then get them out before you have to pay them too much. In the marketplace, [regarding vouchers], wealthier families will subsidize that and other families will not be able to do that. So Read more: Head of the Nation's Largest Teachers' Union: "The Future of Everything" Hinges on 2016: