Teachers Unions

Advocacy and labor groups on Monday filed a lawsuit to stop President Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, saying the move is unconstitutional and will hurt students.

The National Education Association; the NAACP; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Maryland Council 3; and a group of public school parents are asking a federal judge to “immediately halt” the administration’s attempt to shutter the department, they said in a statement.

National Education Association staffers hosted a webinar this week titled “Preparing for a Second Trump Administration,” in which they advised teachers how to combat the incoming president’s policy agenda and advance pro-illegal immigration and pro-social justice rhetoric.

The webinar, which was held on Zoom and recorded by advocacy group Parents Defending Education, opened with a “land acknowledgment” delivered by keffiyeh-wearing Caitlin Ehlers, the board director of the Student Washington Education Association.

A trio of liberal publications has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from teachers unions over the past couple of years, a fact that is not disclosed in their positive coverage of those same unions.

Of all the policy issues where the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is stark, perhaps the most surprising is education: He’s all-in for parental choice; she’s committed to serving the interests of the teachers unions.

And polling shows a majority of Americans are on his side, after decades when the Democratic had a strong edge on education.

She finally did the math.

The leader of the second-largest teachers’ union in the US linked the worldwide drop in math scores on a key international test to the COVID-19 pandemic — during which she had lobbied against a full return to in-person learning.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement that said remote learning was to blame for the drop in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment math evaluation after scores were released Tuesday.

Portland Public Schools in Oregon announced on Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement with its teachers union, and students will return to classes on Monday with a two-hour delay after more than three weeks out of school.

Teachers who have been on strike since Nov. 1 over concerns about pay, class sizes and planning time will still need to vote on the agreement. The deal must also be approved by the school board, although the union is allowing classes to resume while the votes move forward. 

Oregon’s largest school district said late Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement with its teachers union and roughly 45,000 students would be back in school Monday after more than three weeks without classes.

Leaders of Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers finalized a tentative agreement Sunday, allowing 43,000 students to return to school Monday for the first time since Halloween, union and district officials said Sunday afternoon.

A final sticking point – an additional $4 million in raises – was resolved in favor of teachers, school board chair Gary Hollands told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Republicans have taken a more favorable view of labor unions in recent years, but that hasn’t stopped the party from attacking unionized teachers at the recent GOP presidential debate, with one candidate vowing to “break the back” of the teachers’ unions.