Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to willk F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, for those of you have been following me
Speaker 1: for quite some time, you know that one of the
Speaker 1: positions that I had throughout my career was that of teacher.
Speaker 1: I taught first and second grade general and special education,
Speaker 1: went to school, got my master's in education, went to
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, worked on education policy, worked at an environmental organization,
Speaker 1: worked on environmental education and connecting kids with the outdoors.
Speaker 1: Throughout my career, education has been my through line or
Speaker 1: what I do now on my podcasts and through my
Speaker 1: writing as education, but with a different audience and on
Speaker 1: different topics. There is nothing that I don't think is
Speaker 1: more important in this country than a quality, robust education,
Speaker 1: which is why it is so alarming that education has
Speaker 1: been under attack by the radicalized right wing. They don't
Speaker 1: want our children having critical thought. They don't want certain
Speaker 1: books by certain people, black, brown, queer being right in
Speaker 1: the classroom. They don't want to offer up the whole
Speaker 1: truth about this country, about its founding, about how right
Speaker 1: our past prejudices have informed our current inequities. They don't
Speaker 1: want there to be questions that are raised, because then
Speaker 1: young people will demand answers to those questions. One of
Speaker 1: the things that is really truly leading the radical right
Speaker 1: is the fact that they are looking around at Generation
Speaker 1: Z and they don't like what they see. They don't
Speaker 1: like young people that have the ability to tell other
Speaker 1: people how to see them, how to address them. They
Speaker 1: don't like the fact that these young people are changing
Speaker 1: the workforce and are asking questions like why have we
Speaker 1: been working five days a week with only two days
Speaker 1: off one and a half? Really, why do we have
Speaker 1: to sit in a cubicle and do our work when
Speaker 1: technology affords us the ability to be elsewhere and get
Speaker 1: the same amount of work done. Why don't I have
Speaker 1: more control over my life right and my livelihood? And
Speaker 1: so these are questions that this generation is asking why.
Speaker 1: Because the promises that future generations had, like being better
Speaker 1: off than prior generations, is not going to happen for them.
Speaker 1: And so, in order to stop what they believe is
Speaker 1: you know, the devil's work, I call it progress, they
Speaker 1: have to cut off education at the root and make
Speaker 1: sure that they're just creating a bunch of yes men
Speaker 1: widget workers. Creating the permanent underclass for their you know,
Speaker 1: oligarchs that they want that they will have. So coming
Speaker 1: up next on today's show, I sit down again with
Speaker 1: the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Weingarten
Speaker 1: to talk about what teachers have been facing, what our
Speaker 1: education system has been facing, but more importantly here about
Speaker 1: her ten year initiative around giving every child a book
Speaker 1: and why it's critical in a time when literacy rates
Speaker 1: are going in the wrong direction. So that conversation is
Speaker 1: coming up next, folks, I am very happy to welcome
Speaker 1: back to WOKF Daily the president of AFT, the American
Speaker 1: Federation of a teachers' union union that has one point
Speaker 1: seven million members, to discuss a huge campaign that was
Speaker 1: just wrapped up with First Book, giving away more than
Speaker 1: ten million brand new books at schools and community centers
Speaker 1: completely free over the last decade, making sure that a
Speaker 1: child has a meaningful book that they can call their own.
Speaker 1: Randy talk to us about why this initiative was so important,
Speaker 1: this decade long initiative to get ten million free books
Speaker 1: into the hands of children across this country.
Speaker 2: So Danielle, first, thank you for having me on, and second,
Speaker 2: it's pretty simple, meaning books. If you believe that literacy
Speaker 2: is the absolutely most important thing we can do to
Speaker 2: help our kids thrive, then you have to actually give
Speaker 2: kids the tools and create joy and have kids see
Speaker 2: themselves in their surrounding. And there's no better way to
Speaker 2: actually make literacy exciting but to have books and to
Speaker 2: have books that have themselves in them. And so that's
Speaker 2: part of what we were doing here. And we started
Speaker 2: by safely working with First Book to see if we
Speaker 2: could help create classroom libraries for teachers who taught in
Speaker 2: either Title one Schools or Title one Kids, which is
Speaker 2: the Johnson Anti Poverty Program. And one thing led to
Speaker 2: another from classroom libraries because they got books at a
Speaker 2: pretty good price point. So we could, you know, get
Speaker 2: this to teachers who often you know, dig into their
Speaker 2: pockets for everything for kids anyway, So what was amazing
Speaker 2: is one thing one led to another. Then we said, okay,
Speaker 2: why don't we actually do book give boys and why
Speaker 2: don't we have literacy fairs. And then we had one
Speaker 2: of our first book give boys was in Appalachia and
Speaker 2: the First Book and I were there together and Kyle
Speaker 2: and I leaned down Kyle as the head of first book.
Speaker 2: And one of the boys took a book from me
Speaker 2: in a very you know, intrepid way, and he said,
Speaker 2: this is going into my library. And so I'm leaning
Speaker 2: down and talking to him, and you're smiling, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm smiling and you're smiling because you know where
Speaker 2: this is going. And I'm like, wow, you have a
Speaker 2: whole library. He said yes. So I didn't say, well,
Speaker 2: whatever other books in there. He said, this is my
Speaker 2: first one. And so you had that story to fast
Speaker 2: forward to this last Saturday. A grandma came up to me.
Speaker 2: She had been at some of our she's a teacher,
Speaker 2: she'd been at some of our first book events. And
Speaker 2: she runs up to me with a book about Haitian
Speaker 2: culture and she says, I had never seen a book
Speaker 2: about Haitian culture in any of these book fairs. This
Speaker 2: is I'm taking this home. We're going to use it
Speaker 2: for Mother's Day tomorrow. So, you know, just Matthew Cherry
Speaker 2: was with us this past Saturday. He wrote the book
Speaker 2: Hair Love To and Which is Band?
Speaker 1: In someplace I was going to say, I'm like, this
Speaker 1: book is banned.
Speaker 2: And it's a book about black kids and their hair
Speaker 2: and loving their hair. And so you know this is
Speaker 2: so I mean here it's ten million books, it's probably
Speaker 2: ten million stories. But what we've done is we've made
Speaker 2: this into not just giving out books to spark the
Speaker 2: joy of reading and learning, but also to create community.
Speaker 2: So in the last just the last two years, we've
Speaker 2: had three hundred and ninety events pretty much on a
Speaker 2: Saturday or a Sunday or an after school where community
Speaker 2: with parents, where we'd have literacy fairs, we'd have bouncy houses,
Speaker 2: we'd have you know, all sorts of other groups, you know,
Speaker 2: healthcare groups, the unions that were around, other community groups
Speaker 2: you know, have tables as well. Three hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: in two years. This past Saturday we had we we
Speaker 2: gave away one hundred fifty thousand books in New York City, Ohio, Illinois, Texas,
Speaker 2: and Florida. And then a couple of other of our
Speaker 2: virtually said, oh, we weren't in on it. So West
Speaker 2: Virginia did it, Puerto Rico did it. The Puerto Rican schools.
Speaker 2: After they did it, fifty schools called our Puerto Rican
Speaker 2: leaders to say, oh, we want to do this in
Speaker 2: our school as well. So what we're doing is we're
Speaker 2: also making this a community event. So think about it.
Speaker 2: You and I've had these conversations. As extremists ban books,
Speaker 2: we're giving them out. As extremists try to erase history
Speaker 2: and identity, we are making sure the kids see themselves
Speaker 2: and see and can read and their family can read
Speaker 2: about honest history. As you know, others are trying to
Speaker 2: create chaos and fear and division. We're bringing people together
Speaker 2: as a community. So it has all of these ingredients.
Speaker 2: And we decided and look, this is our members buying
Speaker 2: the books at at a good price point. But you know,
Speaker 2: no doubt buying the books. It's cost us millions of
Speaker 2: dollars to do. So we're going to keep on doing
Speaker 2: a million books a year because we know how important
Speaker 2: it is for kids and for communities.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I love this so much. I
Speaker 1: love this initiative one because I've always said as a
Speaker 1: former teacher that schools need to be the community hub, right,
Speaker 1: that in many ways they are the community hub, but
Speaker 1: that we don't treat them that way exactly, and particularly
Speaker 1: so creating this kind of you know environment where you're
Speaker 1: inviting in other unions to have tables, where you are
Speaker 1: you know, inviting in the community to participate is something
Speaker 1: that is really beautiful and cherished, and I think too, frankly,
Speaker 1: at a time when books are being banned, I mean
Speaker 1: they're right now. I don't need thousands thousands of books
Speaker 1: have been banned. Librarians have shut down portions of you know,
Speaker 1: sections of their libraries in school out of fear of
Speaker 1: being prosecuted. And you know what I saw right before
Speaker 1: I came on to talk talk to you, Randy, is
Speaker 1: that we have a really big literacy problem in this country.
Speaker 1: That the literacy rates and proficiency on literacy tests have
Speaker 1: really declined since COVID and have not rebounded. Can you
Speaker 1: talk to us about what kind of teachers are facing
Speaker 1: as we are at a time when books are being banned,
Speaker 1: on top of which children are having are really struggling
Speaker 1: in this country, particularly black and brown children with literacy
Speaker 1: and proficiency.
Speaker 2: So what we're seeing, let me just say that in
Speaker 2: places that we're working with communities like in Wichita and
Speaker 2: Saint Louis, we're actually seeing a rebound in terms of
Speaker 2: literacy rates. And so we've had a tutoring program using
Speaker 2: the books, a tutoring program in Wichita which saw a
Speaker 2: significant increase in their test course to share same in
Speaker 2: terms of Saint Louis and we're you know, because what
Speaker 2: we're doing is we're working with parents, we're working with kids,
Speaker 2: and we're working with teachers. We're also doing a bunch
Speaker 2: of work to help teachers learn the tools about the
Speaker 2: science and reading because for a very long time we
Speaker 2: tend to my most favorite new phrase, Danielle is reject
Speaker 2: the binary because we've done this says.
Speaker 1: This are this or it's that right.
Speaker 2: So, you know, so for years teachers actually you know,
Speaker 2: taught whole language, which I love in terms of reading,
Speaker 2: but we have to actually teach the tools of learning
Speaker 2: how to read. So if you have a kid who's dyslexic,
Speaker 2: they need to be hardwired in terms of the tools
Speaker 2: and recognizing words on being or recognizing human words and
Speaker 2: being able to put things together the same in terms
Speaker 2: of E and lwards. So there's there has always there's
Speaker 2: been issues around how we do the science of reading
Speaker 2: and what we do in terms of literacy and people
Speaker 2: taking these positions that are either or and we have
Speaker 2: to do a both end at both and in terms
Speaker 2: of both the tools about how you teach reading as
Speaker 2: well as the love of reading. Well, what has happened
Speaker 2: layer on top of that, and look, you just.
Speaker 3: Have a a Utah governor and a senator from Connecticut
Speaker 3: who are both now started working on the happiness deficit
Speaker 3: because we have a loneliness problem in the country.
Speaker 2: And one of the worst things that happened in COVID
Speaker 2: was a that schools were not the priority. Bars and
Speaker 2: gyms and restaurants were, so that the stuff that you
Speaker 2: needed to do to reopen schools quickly as what happened
Speaker 2: in Europe didn't happen here. And you know, some of
Speaker 2: that was Trump and some of that was fear, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't a priority. Schools didn't open as quickly as
Speaker 2: they ought to in a safe way as they ought to,
Speaker 2: and so that created a disconnect. And it's the disconnect
Speaker 2: that you're thinking about. It's the disconnect that that has
Speaker 2: helped create terrible loneliness and learning loss. And then on
Speaker 2: top of that, layer on top of that, the fixation
Speaker 2: with phones now and the fixation with TikTok and with
Speaker 2: Instagram and with the phone being or you know, or
Speaker 2: your device is being more important than looking at each other.
Speaker 2: And that's what teachers told me in twenty three to
Speaker 2: twenty four, twenty two to twenty three, and twenty three
Speaker 2: to twenty four, teachers have told talked to me more
Speaker 2: and more about how do we reconnect kids with their lives,
Speaker 2: with other kids, with critical thinking, with play, with relationship building.
Speaker 2: And when you start seeing that happen, you start seeing
Speaker 2: grades going up again. But COVID did was it disconnected people.
Speaker 2: And that disconnect is actually the worst thing I mean,
Speaker 2: other than obviously the deaths, or actually the worst thing
Speaker 2: in COVID for young people. And that's what we've had
Speaker 2: to overcome and I'm saying it in twenty three twenty
Speaker 2: four being overcome more. But then Layran. The third thing
Speaker 2: out with Lran is all the culture wars. So as
Speaker 2: we're trying to recreate a community, think about what the
Speaker 2: extremists are doing. Oh no, you know, divide, divide, divide, fear,
Speaker 2: fear fear. Oh we're not going to meet people where
Speaker 2: they are. Oh no, we're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to mitigate or militate conflict because we don't want kids
Speaker 2: to actually read things that may be conflictual. Oh we're
Speaker 2: not going to do sl el because we you know,
Speaker 2: that's woke. I mean, so it's so on top of it,
Speaker 2: the culture wars actually made this stuff worse. Instead of
Speaker 2: everybody saying, let's be all in to help kids recover,
Speaker 2: let's make schools a priority, let's be all in, we've
Speaker 2: been having this craziness. So all of that, all of
Speaker 2: that is part of why it's taken a long time.
Speaker 1: And I think about, you know, I just want to
Speaker 1: stick with the craziness for a minute, because I think
Speaker 1: about the ways in which the culture wars have really
Speaker 1: begun to drive teachers out of the classroom and create
Speaker 1: a teacher shortage. Can you speak to us about that?
Speaker 1: Right that there is a crisis in some ways in
Speaker 1: the profession because people no longer want to take on
Speaker 1: their governors in their states that are not trusting them
Speaker 1: with curriculum, that are not trusting them with books, and
Speaker 1: so they're deciding, you know what, I'll go do something else.
Speaker 1: What has been the effect of the culture war on
Speaker 1: the profession? New teachers entering in and all so older
Speaker 1: teacher is just deciding to retire out.
Speaker 2: So we had we've had a lot of retirements, not
Speaker 2: significantly more than we would have predicted if you didn't
Speaker 2: have COVID, but what we really have had because because
Speaker 2: people who have decided to stay for five or ten years,
Speaker 2: they're in like they have decided to stay, they have
Speaker 2: really figured it out. I mean, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: there hasn't been attrition. There's about four hundred thousand vacancies
Speaker 2: each year, so there's it's a large attrition profession anyway.
Speaker 2: But the two things, the three things that have happened,
Speaker 2: and there's some data on this is Number one, there's
Speaker 2: fewer people who are going into teacher ed and we've
Speaker 2: already seen you know, you don't hear teacher for America
Speaker 2: very much anymore because it doesn't work. You actually have
Speaker 2: to be prepared for the profession. So there's fewer people
Speaker 2: going into teacher ed and that's a real problem. Number Two,
Speaker 2: it's a labor market. So if you look at the data,
Speaker 2: you can actually make twenty to twenty five percent more
Speaker 2: for the same skills in some other job. And so,
Speaker 2: given you know what happens with student debt and given
Speaker 2: all of these other things, wanting to make a difference
Speaker 2: in the lives of kids is why people become teachers
Speaker 2: and status teachers. But you know, you actually have to
Speaker 2: live on a family sustaining wage. And so even though
Speaker 2: a lot of our collective bargaining has done very well
Speaker 2: this year and last year, you know that if you
Speaker 2: can make twenty twenty five percent more in a non
Speaker 2: teaching with the same skills and a non teaching job,
Speaker 2: that's a big inducement. And number three, and this is
Speaker 2: where we also have data. You have the thirty forty
Speaker 2: to fifty sixty percent of teachers. It's gone from thirty
Speaker 2: to sixty dependent upon this stay Ran data just came
Speaker 2: out saying that they have felt chilled by these laws.
Speaker 2: But even think about it, you're, you know, a former teacher.
Speaker 2: If you have somebody, a kid in your classroom who
Speaker 2: say has decided I don't know, maybe I'm gay, and
Speaker 2: you're in Florida, and before the settlement that Robbie Kaplan
Speaker 2: and others got that said, oh no, you can actually
Speaker 2: say gay, even though it says don't say gay. But
Speaker 2: a kid asks you a question and you don't know
Speaker 2: if you can answer it, because you're going to get
Speaker 2: fired if you answer it. Teacher in Jacksonville had a
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter flag for years, all of a sudden
Speaker 2: gets fired because she has a Black Lives Matter flat.
Speaker 2: We're defending her, we're fighting for her. But what does
Speaker 2: that say. A teacher in Houston teaches a peak of
Speaker 2: doesn't know what he can He's going to retire this year.
Speaker 2: He's sick and tired of having to walk on eggshells
Speaker 2: about what he can say about slavery. So these things
Speaker 2: have an effect. And so what you know, I make
Speaker 2: no apower. Jeane's about saying, we have to be able
Speaker 2: to teach on its history and we have to meet
Speaker 2: the needs of kids. And that's who we are. And
Speaker 2: we as a union have said that we will defend
Speaker 2: our members. It's if they are attempting to do it
Speaker 2: and they get in trouble for it.
Speaker 1: You know, last question for you, Randy. We're heading into
Speaker 1: less than two hundred days until the most consequential election
Speaker 1: of our of our lifetimes, and education in many ways
Speaker 1: is on the ballot. Right in the Republicans Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, they want to get rid of the Department
Speaker 1: of Education if Donald Trump were to get a second term.
Speaker 1: They want to do way with public education altogether. Yes, Biden, right,
Speaker 1: and first lady, first lady is a professor, is a teacher.
Speaker 1: They have tried to make investments into education. One wins
Speaker 1: or the other wins. Where will aft be right post
Speaker 1: November in terms terms of fighting for public education and
Speaker 1: fighting for teachers.
Speaker 2: So look, at the end of the day, whoever wins,
Speaker 2: we're going to fight for kids and we're going to
Speaker 2: fight for public education. And public education is an anchor
Speaker 2: institution for democracy and pluralism. It doesn't mean just like
Speaker 2: with public education, we always have to strengthen it. We
Speaker 2: always have to strengthen democracy, We always have to strengthen pluralism.
Speaker 2: You're never done, you know, And I kind of go
Speaker 2: back to the talmat that says your job is to
Speaker 2: be involved in a task, to start a task. But
Speaker 2: given what we do, you too, You've ever done it
Speaker 2: is always the journey to strengthen it. But the difference
Speaker 2: is going to be and the Republicans of the Congress
Speaker 2: strit to do it this year. What is the federal
Speaker 2: involvement in public education? We give funding for schools that
Speaker 2: help poor kids, rural white poor kids, urban black poor kids.
Speaker 2: You're going to take all that away? Okay, So how
Speaker 2: are you going to level the playing field to help kids?
Speaker 2: If you don't do it in education? Where else are
Speaker 2: you going to do it? What do you want to do?
Speaker 2: How do you help them become engaged as citizens? You
Speaker 2: want them to do child labor instead of help them
Speaker 2: be engaged in citizens. I mean, so I think that
Speaker 2: we have the better side of this argument. And more
Speaker 2: and more and more when you ask parents, what do
Speaker 2: you want? Do you want to not have public education
Speaker 2: and just have you know, private alternatives where private school
Speaker 2: boss could say you can go to my school and
Speaker 2: you can't go to my school depended upon how you
Speaker 2: look or your gender or whatever. Or do you want
Speaker 2: something that says I have an obligation to help meet
Speaker 2: your child's needs and do everything I can so your
Speaker 2: child can thrive. And you know, by eighty twenty people
Speaker 2: say seventy five twenty five, eighty twenty people say they
Speaker 2: want purplic education. So we're going to keep fighting for it.
Speaker 2: But the other thing we're going to do is it
Speaker 2: can't just be about the fight. It has to be
Speaker 2: like we said before, about meeting on literacy and community
Speaker 2: schools and meeting kids where they are experiential learning, having
Speaker 2: workforce development pathways from high school on. We also have
Speaker 2: to change to make sure that we are meeting the
Speaker 2: needs of kids. It can't just always be a fight.
Speaker 2: And what I'm saying is that like with the book giveaways,
Speaker 2: when you meet the needs of kids and families, when
Speaker 2: you create that connection, we create that community. Then what
Speaker 2: happens is the community storms for schools and make school
Speaker 2: centers of community. And when you do that, we save
Speaker 2: democracy because with our kids and with our public schools
Speaker 2: comes our democracy.
Speaker 1: Amazing as always, Randy Weingarten, I appreciate you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: the work that you continue to do with AFT, the
Speaker 1: voice that you give to teachers, and the time that
Speaker 1: you make for wok A. Really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: H That is it for me today, dear friends on
Speaker 1: woke A f as always Power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.