
WASHINGTON—Even before the official executive order from anti-union and anti-worker President Donald Trump, the nation’s two big public school teachers’ unions are girding for a battle over dollars—or lack of them—for public schools.
Both Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher, and National Education Association President Becky Pringle anticipate Trump will issue yet another executive order mandating cuts in federal funding for public schools, with the money, via taxpayer-paid vouchers, going to private school parents instead.
And as if the White House’s scheme isn’t enough to battle, the Republican-run House Appropriations subcommittee which helps disburse federal education funding is expected to revive its money bill for the current fiscal year, which began October 1.
That measure cut federal funding for K-12 schools by 80% compared to the 12 months before.
The panel’s two excuses for such a cut, voiced by subcommittee chair Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., is the schools aren’t doing their jobs and that many school districts have stashed the federal funds away rather than spending the dollars to help educate the kids.
Parents and taxpayers, even in red states Trump carried, should worry about Trump’s plan. That’s because public schools teachers—most of them union members—instruct nine of every ten of the nation’s K-12 students.
Indeed, one reason Weingarten journeyed during the last election campaign to deep-red Kentucky was to campaign against a voucher plan the state’s GOP-heavy legislature planned to impose: The vouchers would strip away public school money and have it follow kids to private schools.
Charter schools and school vouchers, which Trump is also expected to endorse, are favorite causes of the radical right, which hates teachers, public schools and the kids attending them. It’s not a coincidence that the majority of public school students are students of color—and that the majority of the haters, Trump included, are white.
“Americans of all political stripes want safe and welcoming public schools where kids are engaged and have the knowledge and skills to thrive in careers, college and life. This plan is a direct attack on all that parents and families hold dear,” Weingarten said on January 29 after news reports surfaced about the pending Trump order.
“It’s a ham-fisted, recycled and likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
And via the vouchers, it’s yet another Trump tax cut for the rich, since the vouchers “go mostly to wealthy families whose kids are already in private school. This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators—a tax cut for the rich.”
“Voters overwhelmingly rejected billionaire-backed voucher scams in November—even in states Trump won—because they know vouchers hurt student achievement, bankrupt state budgets and deny opportunity to rural and urban communities. They spurned extremist school board candidates and opted again and again for levies and ballot initiatives to improve public schools,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle added.
“President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress. Parents, educators, and voters know what students need—and vouchers are never the solution. In fact, when voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected—time and again—at the ballot box.
“Voucher programs leave out wide swaths of students, especially Black and brown students as well as those living in rural areas with no or limited access to private schools. And we know this stunt is meaningless without the consent of Congress. So, we are putting all anti-public education politicians on notice: If you try to come for our students, for our schools, and for our communities, NEA members will mobilize and will defeat vouchers again.”
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