Incoming head of nation’s largest teachers union says it’s time ‘to turn up that heat’
Shortly after it became official that Becky Pringle would be the next head of the nation’s largest teachers union, she set the tone for her presidency with a tweet that ended like this: “We are ready to turn up that heat.”
In an interview Friday, the National Education Association’s incoming president said that means supporting local strikes or protests over teacher safety in the era of the coronavirus, filing lawsuits to block reopening plans that teachers see as unsafe, and other efforts to put teachers at the center of the national conversation.
“You saw that as our teachers came together in the Red for Ed movement,” Pringle said, referring to the wave of teacher activism in recent years calling for higher teacher pay and more school funding. Some educators went on strike, some didn’t, she noted. “But they were willing to come together as this powerful force and demand the resources their students and their schools needed. That is the kind of energy and power that I want to unleash.”
Pringle’s election comes as the U.S. continues to struggle to figure out how to reopen its schools. Nationally, COVID-19 case numbers have continued rising, and most of the CONTINUE READING: Incoming NEA head Becky Pringle says it’s time ‘to turn up that heat’ - Chalkbeat