Randi Weingarten (The More Things Changed)

Randi Weingarten (born December 18, 1957) is an American attorney, teacher, union leader, and the 11th and current United States Secretary of Education. She is a member of the AFL-CIO and is the former president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the former president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). She is the first openly gay woman to serve in the Cabinet.

Legal and Teaching Career
Weingarten worked as a lawyer for the firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1983 to 1986, where she handled several arbitration cases on behalf of the UFT.

In 1986, Weingarten became counsel to Sandra Feldman, then-president of the UFT - where she handled high-level grievances for the union. She was also lead counsel for the UFT in a number of lawsuits against New York City and the state over school funding and school safety; eventually, she became the union's lead negotiator for contract settlements. She became an Assistant Secretary of the UFT in 1995.

From 1991 to 1997, Weingarten taught at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn; where she taught Law, Ethical Issues in Medicine, AP Political Science, and US History and Government. Her political science students competed in the We the People civics competition, winning the state championship in 1993-94 and 1994–95 and being fourth in the national championship in 1994-95.

UFT Career
Elected the UFT's treasurer in 1997, Weingarten succeeded Sandra Feldman as President of the union a year later when Feldman was elected president of the national American Federation of Teachers. Weingarten was elected a Vice President of the AFT the same year.

Weingarten served for 12 years as President of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, representing approximately 200,000 educators in the New York City public school system, as well as home child care providers and other workers in health, law and education.

Weingarten resigned from her position as President of the United Federation of Teachers on July 31, 2009, in order to devote her time fully to the AFT. An editorial in the New York Post characterized Weingarten's final paycheck from the UFT as a "$194,188 golden parachute.”

AFT Presidency
On February 12, 2008, AFT President Edward J. McElroy announced his retirement. On July 14, Weingarten was elected to succeed him, becoming the first openly gay individual to be elected president of a national labor union in the United States.

Under her direction, the AFT launched major efforts to place real education reform high on the nation’s and her union’s agendas. She created the AFT Innovation Fund, an initiative designed to support "sustainable, innovative and collaborative education reform projects developed by members and their local unions." The AFT also developed a model of teacher evaluations designed for continuous improvement and feedback, with the aim of ensuring that tenure becomes a "guarantee of fairness." Weingarten led an AFT committee that called for all prospective teachers to meet a high entry standard to better equip them for the classroom.

Weingarten oversaw the development of the AFT’s Quality Education Agenda, which advocates for reforms grounded in "evidence, equity, scalability and sustainability."

Nomination and Confirmation
On November 23, 2016, it was announced that Weingarten was President-elect Clinton's choice to be the next United States Secretary of Education. She was succeeded as President of the AFT by Marietta A. English, President of the Baltimore Teachers Union.

Weingarten was confirmed by the Senate on January 25th, 2017, by a party-line vote.

Tenure
During her tenure as Secretary of Education, Weingarten has continued to champion teachers unions and advocate for improving the quality of public education over expansion of charter schools, which she has termed "one of the great threats to our public education system."



In her first major policy speech as Education Secretary, Weingarten spoke before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., where she outlined four key goals of her department:
 * Promoting Children's Well-Being
 * Supporting Powerful Learning
 * Building Capacity
 * Fostering Community Collaboration

At a March 20th address before the Brookings Institute, Weingarten repeated her claim that the expansion of charter schools was "part of a coordinated national effort to decimate public schooling."

From March 29th-31st, Secretary Weingarten attended the International Summit on the Teaching Profession in Edinburgh, Scotland. In her address before Summit attendees, Weingarten implored for greater protections for teachers, the freedom of expression, and advocated for the "Sustainable Community Schools" model.

"Reclaim Our Schools" Initiative
As Secretary of Education, Weingarten has pushed for a new initiative - Reclaim Our Schools. The key goals of the initiative, as stated, are:
 * Billions of dollars for public schools in black and brown communities
 * Qualified teachers, relevant curriculum and social and health care services – what we call “Sustainable Community Schools”
 * Positive discipline policies and an end to zero-tolerance
 * An end to high-stakes tests that are used to punish schools, teachers and students, and more time for teaching and learning
 * An end to the expansion of unaccountable charter schools
 * A real commitment to parent and educator leadership and democratic process.

Guidelines for OFRRA Funds
As part of the Offshore Finances Repatriation and Reinvestment Act, $20 billion in block grants is given to school districts, assigned per capita, for "renovations and expansion of educational materials and access." Although nonbinding, the bill authorizes the Department of Education to publish guidelines on how the funds should be used. The guidelines unveiled in June of 2017, largely reflected the goals of the Rclaim Our Schools Initiative.

Approximately $397-$400 is given to public school districts, per student, using 20th day enrollment as the benchmark for expected enrollment for the rest of the school year. With these funds, students are expected to invest more in after-school programs and updating educational materials.

Charter School Regulations
In May of 2017, under her authority as Secretary, Weingarten issued a series of regulations for charter schools; a press release from the Department of Education stated that their goal that their goal was "to provide quality education for students supported by taxpayer dollars, and ensuring those dollars are spent wisely, regardless of which school those students attend."

Among it's provisions, the new regulations require that:
 * Charter schools must ensure that no more than 15% of their enrolled students fall below the educational benchmarks achieved by the median student statewide.
 * Before receiving a charter for a new school, domestic and foreign non-profit corporation, if they run other schools in the United States, must demonstrate adherence to the 15% rule in those schools.
 * Before receiving a charter for a new school, foreign non-profit corporations and domestic non-profit corporations "with significant foreign ties" must also receive a waiver from the Secretary.
 * Each state must abide by a cap on the number of charter schools allowed to be opened in any given year, as determined by the Department of Education.

Lawsuits


These regulations were subsequently challenged in court by Apple Educational Services, a non-profit educational services provider, registered in New Jersey but with ties to the Gülen movement. On June 5th, 2017, Apple Educational Services sued the Department of Education, arguing that the regulations placed a discriminatory burden on them.

Apple Educational Services v. Weingarten is currently being heard in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

A separate lawsuit against the regulations has been filed by the Attorneys General of Texas, Florida, Michigan, Indiana, and Louisiana.

Political Activities
As President of the UFT, she led the union in endorsing New York Governor George Pataki for re-election in 2002. In 2005, Julia Levy of the New York Sun reported that candidates for Mayor of New York were meeting with Weingarten, noting that she had "become something of a kingmaker.” The UFT's endorsement, wrote Levy, meant “votes, campaign volunteers, and information.”

A lifelong Democrat, Weingarten is a member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and was was an early and critically important supporter of Howard Dean as Chairman of the DNC. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, she served as a delegate for Virginia Senator Hillary Clinton. In 2006, her name was floated in political circles as a potential candidate in the Senate race against incumbent Rudy Giuliani; ultimately, she decided not to run. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer would go on to win the primary and the general election.

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 was passed into law with support from the AFT. The law largely replaced the the No Child Left Behind Act. Among its provisions, the law requires that states must still test students in the same grades, but affords them flexibility in how and when they administer those tests. For example, a single annual assessment can be broken down into a series of smaller tests. Additionally, states are allowed to pick their own accountability goals, so long as those goals address proficiency on tests, English-language proficiency, and graduation rates. Weingarten applauded the bill, stating:

"'[The ESSA] affords teachers flexibility to try new ways to teach, to meet the needs of their students, and to help their students think critically and analytically instead of focusing on what might be on a high-stakes test.'"

Weingarten pushed for the act, in large part, due to of provisions that stripped the United States Secretary of Education’s role in influencing teacher evaluation systems and maintained federal funding Title I for schools with high proportions of students from low-income households.

In the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, she supported fellow New Yorker Rep. Bernie Sanders, calling him a "lifelong champion of workers' rights and the rights of teachers."

During Senate Confirmation Hearings


During her confirmation hearings by the Senate, the Center for Union Facts - a union watchdog group - ran a full-page ad in several newspapers across the country. The ad featured a photograph of Weingarten's face with the caption "Hubris [hyoo-bris]]: exaggerated pride or self-confidence. Synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, haughtiness, egotism, popmposity, superiority. See: Randi Weingarten."

Plagiarized Speech
In 2011, a speech by Weingarten lifted several phrases by NY1 without attribution. NY1 released a statement saying “When a journalist, politician or student uses someone else's words without attribution in a speech or a paper, it's called plagiarism – and it's often enough to get a journalist fired, a politician embarrassed or a student kicked out of school."

Weingarten apologized for the plagiarism, saying "NY1 is right. These facts came from their excellent reporting. It was our intention to amplify the troubling misallocation of resources NY1 exposed, not to claim either NY1's reporting or the reporter's words as our own. It was our mistake not to clearly credit NY1 and its reporter Lindsey Christ."

Staffing of the Department of Education
While it is not uncommon for newly-appointed Cabinet members to bring their own people with them to Washington, the Washington Post has commented on the "breakneck speed" at which Weingarten has dismissed "eminently qualified policy experts and replaced them with friends, regardless of relevant experience." In particular, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin criticized Weingarten's appointment of Gene Bruskin, former Strategic Campaigns Director for the AFT, as Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Strategic Planning, calling the situation "a troubling replacement of a distinguished career official with a uniquely unqualified crony."