American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is at it again.
At a recent “No Kings” rally, Weingarten’s speech repeatedly criticized President Donald Trump. This week, her teachers’ union, along with several other progressive groups, rolled out a new activist toolkit to urge schools to not cooperate with ICE.
American parents should be furious. Educational deficiencies, especially in Maine, are bordering on a national crisis despite excessive federal funding.
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Rather than addressing the escalating problem, however, Weingarten’s AFT is weaponizing American education with partisan political agendas that disproportionately harm low-income students.
In recent years, U.S. educational spending has increased nearly 36% while student performance has plummeted nationwide. This national trend is mirrored in Maine, where the state now spends about 19% more per student than it did in 2018. Even so, Maine student outcomes “appear to have declined precipitously during the current decade.”
Just last year, the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s annual “Nation’s Report Card” revealed that despite skyrocketing federal spending, high school seniors are heading to college with record-low reading and math scores, which have dropped 10 points since 1992.
The report ranks students in three categories: basic, proficient, and advanced. Less than half of American seniors — who will join the workforce in a few years — even qualified as “proficient” in reading. Less than a third are “proficient” in math. Almost 50% of the same students didn’t even score high enough to be considered “basic” at math, while almost a third scored below “basic” in reading.
In Maine, things are even worse. In 2024, Maine students’ reading and math scores reached 30-year lows. And as the Maine Morning Star reports, “in 2022, Maine was the only state to have record lows in all four testing categories, and according to 2024 data, scores have only gotten worse.” Maine students fared “significantly worse” than the national average on every tested subject except for math, where they scored just 1 point above the national average.
American schools are graduating these children and sending them into the real world without the most basic building blocks for success, ensuring that many will struggle with barriers that a good education could have fixed.
The AFT exists ostensibly to promote student performance and support teachers. The organization collects over $200 million in member dues every year from its nearly 2 million members who teach in schools nationwide. With such a massive network and income at its disposal, surely AFT could solve the education crisis, right?
Instead of trying to solve the spending and performance gap, however, Weingarten’s AFT continues prioritizing political activism over the very people it claims to support.
AFT has a sordid history of funneling millions of dollars exclusively toward Democratic campaigns and candidates. In recent years, the organization has spent at least $43 million on leftist political agendas and candidates, including almost $13 million on Democratic candidates in 2024 alone.
Political stunts, including Weingarten’s screamfest at the “No Kings” rally and the organization’s focus on unrelated policy advocacy over education, are commonplace for AFT. The organization justifies its political activism by arguing that it’s necessary to protect and support vulnerable students and teachers.
The truth is that AFT’s obsessive prioritization of politics over student performance disproportionately harms the millions of low-income students who can’t afford an alternative to public school. These children should be the primary focus of AFT.
In Maine, an estimated 26,000 students live below the poverty line. And as school choice is not available, public schools are their only option. In normal circumstances, these schools would serve as a lifeline to a higher socioeconomic status than their parents. Today, they are perpetuating cycles of poverty as well as income and opportunity gaps that could take generations to rectify.
AFT could easily end this crisis by using its immense wealth, influence, and network to promote stronger teachers, develop a more effective curriculum, and address the massive spending-versus-outcome gap in the U.S. education system.
Instead, they are cosplaying as resistance figures in some imaginary authoritarian country, diverting resources away from the children who need them the most.
The irony of Weingarten screaming about “No Kings” while her organization focuses exclusively on enriching Democratic candidates and causes to the detriment of our lowest-income families should not be lost on Americans.
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Taking from the vulnerable to enrich the wealthy, on the command of a single person hellbent on self-aggrandizement?
Sounds like the only royal in town is at the helm of AFT.
Laurel Libby is a member of the Maine House of Representatives and executive director of Lead Maine.