Nearly half of high school seniors are not proficient in reading or math, and one-third of eighth graders cannot read at a basic level. The aftershocks of pandemic-era school closures are still playing out, with students regressing to levels not seen in more than 25 years, and one in four now chronically absent from the classroom. An overreliance on technology, lax policies around personal devices like cell phones, and weakened discipline standards have only deepened the problem, eroding focus, accountability, and real learning.
The current challenges also extend beyond students. Nearly eight in 10 teachers say they have considered leaving the profession, citing burnout as their pay continues to fall behind that of other college-educated workers. The system is strained at every level, and every person with skin in the game knows it.
Who is at the center of it all? America’s teachers’ unions. While students slip to historic lows in reading and math and classrooms struggle to recover from union-driven school shutdowns, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its president Randi Weingarten appear focused elsewhere, pouring time, money, and political muscle into ideological conflicts and partisan campaigns instead of fixing the schools they supposedly represent.
As president of the nation’s largest teacher’s union, Weingarten represents 1.8 million educators and plays a central role in shaping K-12 policy and the direction of American education. At a moment of historic academic decline, one might expect her influence to be directed toward fixing it.
It’s not. She is focused on her own political ambitions.
Weingarten has directed the AFT’s resources toward organizing and amplifying explicitly political activism, including the anti-Trump “No Kings” rallies. There, she took the spotlight to declare that “we are not going to let Donald Trump continue to do what he has been doing” and ignoring the fact that Americans voted to elect Donald Trump as President, boldly claimed that “we, the people, have to have the ultimate say.”
Unfortunately, this latest spectacle is nothing new. The AFT has a long record of channeling resources into left-wing political campaigns, protests, and advocacy efforts that have little to do with whether students can read, write, do basic math, or are proficient in these core competencies.
The AFT has funneled tens of millions of dollars to left-wing aligned groups and candidates since 2022, and spent most of last year engaged in aggressive legal and activist campaigns against Trump administration-directed education reforms aimed at restoring parental oversight in curricula and de-politicizing the classroom.
This ideological activism was on full display during the pandemic, when Weingarten advocated and defended keeping schools closed far longer than necessary, even as evidence showed it was safe to reopen. After these devastating setbacks from school closures and virtual learning, the average student is less than halfway to a full academic recovery. In some grades, there has been little to no improvement in reading since classrooms reopened. Chronic absenteeism has surged, especially among lower-income students; in 2024, rates were 57 percent higher than before the pandemic, and Weingarten is directly responsible for this generational learning loss.
Even after nearly $200 billion in emergency federal spending on K-12 education, student performance continues to decline. Students are doing worse than they were a decade ago, and lower-performing students are now further behind than their counterparts were more than 30 years ago. National test scores have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, while The Nation’s Report Card data shows the gap between high- and low-performing students continuing to widen.
At a moment when student outcomes are deteriorating at record levels, the priorities for educational leadership like Weingarten should not be difficult to identify. It begins in the classroom: ensuring children are given foundational tools for critical thinking and can learn how to think (not what to think) and supporting teachers and parents as they help students achieve their full potential.
At the American Parents Coalition, we will continue to educate parents on the blatant partisan actions academic leaders like Weingarten are doing, at the expense of our children. It’s time to reclaim parental authority, and to demand teachers’ unions focus on academic success and not divisive ideologies.
Our children do not get another chance at learning. Their childhood is finite. The major setbacks taking hold now will shape not only academic prospects in their immediate future, but also their confidence, opportunity, and quality of life.
Randi Weingarten prioritizes a political agenda over our kids. She promotes policies that cut parents out of their children’s lives. She uses her platform to advocate for herself, not teachers or students. It’s time for Randi Weingarten to be replaced with a true advocate for education.
Protests against President Donald Trump over his mass deportation policies are scheduled to take over the streets across dozens of Arizona cities this weekend.
The protests were coordinated through the national “No Kings” organization. “No Kings” refers to the belief that Trump has overreached in his powers, much like a monarchy, based on the drastic increase in federal immigration enforcement actions. The organization coordinated protests last spring, summer, and fall.
Over 7 million activists attended over 2,700 protests across the nation during the latest designated No Kings protest day last October.
Last year’s No Kings protests presented problems as some devolved into looting and rioting.
Some who hit the streets under the pretense of protest committed crimes that targeted law enforcement and local businesses.
Activists on the lookout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have targeted local law enforcement under suspicion of their affiliation with the federal agency. Officers conducting operations and arrests for crimes other than immigration have faced off against violent rioters attempting to disrupt what they believe to be deportation proceedings.
Such was the case in one incident last summer when anti-ICE activists assaulted a Peoria police officer participating in a narcotics raid.
Saturday’s No Kings protests are scheduled to occur in Ajo, Anthem, Apache Junction, Arivaca, Bisbee, Bullhead City, Casas Adobes, Casa Grande, Chandler, Cottonwood, Douglas, Flagstaff, Florence, Fountain Hills, Gilbert, Glendale, Globe, Goodyear, Green Valley, Kingman, Lake Havasu City, Marana, Maricopa, Mesa, Nogales, Oro Valley, Patagonia, Payson, Phoenix, Prescott, Quartzsite, Queen Creek, Safford, Sahuarita, Scottsdale, Sedona, Show Low, Sierra Vista, Sun City, Sun City West, Superior, Surprise, Tempe, Tubac, Tucson, Tucson Estates, Vail, Willcox, Winslow, and Yuma.
The No Kings coalition has over 200 partners backing it, including: Accountable.Us, American Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Government Employees, ACLU, Bernie Sanders campaign, College Democrats of America, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Greenpeace, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, NextGen America, Planned Parenthood, and Sierra Club.
The primary coordinators behind the initial formation of No Kings were the organizations Indivisible and 50501.
The 50501 movement has a chapter in Arizona, which has a private Facebook group containing over 6,500 members. This chapter’s online administrators include Tucson resident Scott Jackson; Erica Connell, a Phoenix drag performer who goes by the name “Weird Violet”; and Gilbert resident Kristin Clement.
Activists aligned with the 50501 movement attempted to breach the Arizona Capitol last February.
Other local activist organizations have played a role in organizing No Kings protests as well. Among these are the Party for Socialism and Liberation in Phoenix, East Valley Unite AZ, Gilbert Good Trouble, Mesa Valley Indivisible, Rural Arizona Action, Instituto Power, Progress Arizona, LUCHA Arizona, AZ Resistance Front, and United Campus Workers of Arizona.
Earlier this month, anti-ICE activists disrupted proceedings in the Arizona legislature to protest deportations.
In addition to educating illegal aliens on avoiding immigration enforcement, these organizations have encouraged the use of hotlines to report and track the whereabouts of federal agents. One hotline, “Migra Watch,” has dedicated caller hotlines for Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson, and rural areas, and a text hotline as well.
Financial data revealed tens of millions of federal dollars flowing into the organizations throwing their support behind No Kings protests.
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The Arizona Board of Education (ASBE) removed language relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from state teaching standards and English language learning courses.
This follows a delay in their decision on the matter several months ago.
President @realDonaldTrump made it clear that DEI, CRT, and inappropriate sexual lessons need to be removed from our public schools. I couldn’t agree more with the President and will be working with the administration to get woke nonsense out of the classroom. https://t.co/l6gdmrsgXJ
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne published a press release approving ASBE’s decision to go forward with removing DEI language from Arizona education.
Arizona’s federal funding for 2026 amounts to about $870 million; should Arizona schools not purge DEI, that federal funding may be refused, per the Trump administration.
Horne said the DEI divestment not only counted as compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order conditioning federal funding on the absence of DEI, but as a philosophical good for students.
“All people should be judged based on their character and ability, not their race or ethnicity. DEI language and programs promote the exact opposite, and they have no place in the classroom,” said Horne. “These terms do not belong in teaching standards, which are meant to direct educators on the most effective ways to teach students’ core academics. Every instructional minute is precious, and DEI efforts distract from that essential mission.”
Multiple federal courts issued nationwide preliminary injunctions against the DEI ban earlier this year. However, the proceedings of those cases were impacted by the Supreme Court ruling in June through Trump v. CASA that declared these and other nationwide injunctions improperly exceed the authority of federal courts. The Supreme Court determined that lower courts must offer specific relief to the involved parties, and generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions to non-plaintiffs.
Following this decision by ASBE, a dedicated working group launching in February will draft materials purging DEI from the Arizona Professional Teaching Standards and Structured English Immersion (SEI) Endorsement Course Frameworks.
These materials will define DEI-related language in order to determine which language to remove or revise.
All 15 counties will have representation in this working group. There will be special considerations to include teacher representatives from General Education, Special Education, and the various teacher subgroups such as English Language Learning, Gifted, and Talented programs.
Stakeholder input will be collected from the three public universities, county education superintendents, school administrators, Arizona Rural Education Association, Arizona Educators Association, and current Structured English Immersion course providers.
ASBE is scheduled to consider these materials next September.
While the state’s top education authority supports these modifications, other stakeholder groups oppose them.
The Arizona Education Association (AEA) submitted a letter to ASBE urging rejection of the proposed changes. AEA leadership claimed over 22,000 educators statewide signed onto the letter in their press release. That’s roughly one-third of the teacher workforce in the state. However, the letter clarified that AEA counted mere membership with their organization as equivalent to all members signing on to their letter.
AEA President Marisol Garcia said without DEI Arizona education would cause a “race to the bottom” — vulnerable to constant changes and little of the continuity required for imparting a strong education — as well as a purging of history.
The other major teachers unions at the national level — the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, as well as the civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — sued the Trump administration to stop the DEI ban.
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Democratic Congressman Raúl Grijalva passed away from complications with cancer on Thursday morning.
Grijalva was 77 years old at the time of his passing. The representative took up his congressional seat in 2003. This term was promised to be Grijalva’s last, per the congressman.
It appears staff didn’t get the memo about Grijalva’s passing. Hours before Grijalva’s office issued an official statement on X about his passing, Grijalva’s staff published a post criticizing the Trump administration.
The last post on Grijalva’s account prior to the announcement of his passing concerned the mass layoffs essentially halving the Department of Education (ED) workforce. Grijalva’s staff criticized President Donald Trump’s ED cleanup as “reckless,” “selfish,” and “illegal,” claiming students’ aid programs, civil rights protections, and disability supports were jeopardized.
Grijalva’s staff claimed, specifically, the ED firings would deprive 26 million students of critical funding, 12 million students of career and technical education resources, 10 million low-income students of higher education assistance, and 7.5 million Individualized Education Plan (IEP) students of special education services.
These estimates were pulled directly from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the affiliated international union of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). The AFT consists of over 1.3 million members and 3,000 local affiliates nationwide. However, these estimates were not based on ED layoffs but rather a complete abolition of ED — something that has not yet taken place.
The posting raises concerns over who was representing Grijalva’s constituents during his last few years in office after his announced lung cancer diagnosis in 2023 — especially due to the fact Grijalva missed a vast majority of major votes since then.
President Trump’s latest reckless decision to fire thousands of employees at the Department of Education jeopardizes critical student aid programs, weakens protections for students’ civil rights, and undermines essential support for students with disabilities. This move severely…
Not only did Grijalva step down from key leadership positions — he remained absent from Congress for most of this last legislative session and was absent for this session with the exception of the first day (69 out of 71 roll call votes, or about 97 percent of votes). Grijalva didn’t cast a vote on legislation this session, save for his vote for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker at the start.
Grijalva previously defended his lack of voting in remarks to the press because “Republicans are in charge” and his vote wouldn’t matter anyway.
“They’re inconsequential because the Republicans are in charge and it’s the worst performing Congress in decades, if not a hundred years,” said Grijalva.
Although Grijalva’s health was in decline amid his ongoing cancer treatments last summer, Grijalva was among the early few Democratic leaders to call on former President Joe Biden to step down from his reelection bid last year. Grijalva said it was a duty for those unfit to serve to preserve the seat for their party by dropping out of the race.
“If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,” said Grijalva to the press. “What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of the race.”
These remarks to the media were reported at the time to be a sharp and inexplicable departure from Grijalva’s messaging on social media supporting Biden and criticizing naysayers of Biden’s candidacy just the week prior.
In light of the fact that Grijalva’s staff posted on X under his name hours after he died on Thursday, it seems Grijalva’s staff may have been more in charge of the office for longer than most constituents were aware.
Following the passing of Grijalva, Governor Katie Hobbs issued a proclamation calling for a special primary election to fill the vacancy for Congressional District 7 on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, and a special general election on Tuesday, September 23, 2025.
Federal law (2 U.S.C. § 8) provides that special elections to fill vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives are held under applicable state laws.
Under A.R.S. § 16-222(B), if the next regular general election is not to be held within six months from the date of the occurrence of the vacancy, the Governor shall call a special primary election to be held 120 to 133 days after the vacancy and a special general election to be held 70 to 80 days after the special primary election.
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America’s athletes once again excelled at the 2024 Olympic games. Without the benefit of massive government-controlled sports programs enjoyed by many of their competitors, they proved their superiority while representing their homeland with sportsmanship and respect.
It’s not jingoistic to point out that America, in spite of some worrisome decline, is still number one in many other spheres. In terms of military might, industrial capacity, and technological innovation, we enjoy preeminence.
Yet our educational system, which in the long run may matter most, is below mediocre. We consistently score below average in math and literary achievement tests versus students from other developed countries.
Worse, we are producing graduates with scant knowledge of their own history, ignorant of the political and economic principles that created their privileged world. Many seem emotionally fragile, enthralled with identity politics and unable to tolerate those with opinions different from their own.
The reason for this is no mystery. American education policymaking is dominated by the federal Department of Education (DOE). The department was created by President Jimmy Carter in gratitude to the teachers’ unions for their support in the 1976 election. It has been the gift that keeps on giving as the DOE has faithfully represented the unions’ interests ever since.
Unfortunately, the union/DOE priorities are more directed to sweeping left-wing political agendas than the education of America’s school children. For example, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona enthusiastically supports radical gender ideology.
At this year’s “Trans Day of Visibility,” he advised children that choosing and changing their own gender is expressing the “gift to see things as they could be.” Our chief educator would better serve children by encouraging them to see things as they are and avoid life choices they may bitterly regret later.
Cardona also has strong feelings that teachers, not parents, should direct children’s education, even where values and morals are concerned. “Teachers know what is best for their kids because they work with them every day,” he assured us in a since deleted tweet.
The two largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), exposed their near total disregard for the educational progress of their charges during the recent Covid epidemic. They refused to provide in-person teaching long after the scientific evidence was clear that no harm came to children from school attendance.
AFT President Randi Weingarten, in her address at its recent annual conference, didn’t bother to address the enormous educational deficiencies caused by the lockout or exhort her members to focus on the needs of students struggling to catch up academically. Instead, she ranted hysterically about the “violence and fascism” looming if Trump were to win the presidential election. The main obstacle to educational success she perceived was those who question the resource materials that her unionized teachers select for their students of any age.
These unions’ all-purpose remedy for academic shortcomings is more funding. Yet decades of funding increases have produced no positive results.
For example, the Chicago Teachers Union, holding that testing is “junk science rooted in white supremacy,” argued against reopening schools on the grounds that resuming teaching was mere “sexism, racism and misogyny.” Instead, they demanded a $51,000 salary increase, 45 additional days off, and more annual LBGTQ training.
The result: the district now spends $29,028 per student, a 97 percent increase since 2012. Yet during that time, proficiency in math has dropped 78 percent from an already low level and reading proficiency has declined 63 percent. In other words, Chicago public school students are being sent into the world illiterate and mathematically incompetent. But their teachers are well paid.
America has no prospect of improving our educational system until the DOE and the unions are stripped of their influence. It won’t be easy. Realistically this is totally impossible under a Democrat administration, given the strong bonds between the unions and their captive party.
In its 60 plus years of existence, the DOE has failed to provide any academic benefits for our students. The consequences are now becoming apparent. Somehow, we must find the will to eliminate the Department and move forward.
It’s for the children. And the future of America.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
