Teachers Union boss Randy Weingarten said he is concerned that closing the Department of Education could be as harmful to students as school closures were in the community.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to begin the process of closing the department.
The executive order asks McMahon to “take all the necessary steps to promote the Department of Education's closure, while continuing to ensure effective and uninterrupted delivery of the services, programs and benefits that Americans rely on.”
“You know, laying off people off, laying off people off, and laying off departments can separate,” Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said in Bloomberg's “Balance of Power.”
Ministry of Education was significantly dismantled by a new Trump executive order
US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the education sector, along with undergraduate children signing his version, at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2025. ((Photo by Somodevilla/Getty Images))
“So what I don't want is that we don't want to shut it down in so many ways that the kids are really hurting, and someone says, 'Oops, we weren't going to do that.' The kids pass through kindergarten once,” Weingarten added. “We've already seen many years of issues that happened during Covid when schools were closed for a long time. We've now made sure to make this right for our kids.”
Weingarten, Aft and other teacher unions have been criticized for their response to the coronavirus pandemic and their resistance to reopening schools for years.
In July 2020, Weingarten denounced the Trump administration's guidelines to reopen schools as “reckless”, “carous” and “Crual” by fall 2020. She later called on Congress for more federal funding for schools, threatening a strike if they reopened without implementing vast safety precautions such as mask mandates, six-foot social distancing requirements (from the CDC's recommended 3-foot distance at the time), and updated ventilation systems.
Emails from February 2021 show that AFT successfully lobbyed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be more cautious in school opening guidelines.
A few months after union members said they “really don't care,” Randi Weingarten said they were “really angry” over ed dept Elimination.
President Randy Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers appeared to have conflicting ideas about the Department of Education. (Photo: MSNBC screenshot)
According to the Nation's Report Cards (NAEP), the 2024 Educational Progress (NAEP), published in January by the Department of Education in January, the reading comprehension among American students has not improved much in the past two years since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The results of NAEP today reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears. Not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning losses, but the students who were the laggard and most needed support have fallen behind,” the education department said in a statement. “Even with the billions of dollars the federal government invests in K-12 education each year and the approximately $190 billion in federal pandemic funds, our education system continues to fail students across the country.”
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Wednesday press release, The AFT said the demolition of the Department of Education is a “movement that most people in America don't want to do to reduce opportunities for students.”
Weingarten proposed suing the Trump administration with a quote in a press release that she said “sees you in court.”
