on january 26 emma 2021, on the u.s. capitol. he has the oversight subcommittee, live, today, beginning at 3:00 p.m. eastern, on cspan 3. visit cspan now on our mobile app, or visit online at cspan .org. . host: the start of a new school. year, we welcome back randi weingarten, president at the start of a new school year, we welcome back president of teachers.

what are the biggest challenges facing teachers the school year? >> the biggest challenge is that it is great to go back to school. my local home, new york city, today is the first day for all of those kids. i'm wishing all of them the best year. it is 95 degrees in the heat. it is a problem everywhere. some schools don't have air conditioning. what has happened, the same problems that afflicted the nation, afflict the schools. schools are really a melting pot of everything going on in the nation. whatever you want to say, we are dealing with everything that is going on. it is all really hard to overcome. this is what we should be doing in schools. we are planning a welcoming environment. we are ensuring that every

school, public or not, is a place that educators want to work in, and a place where parents want to send their kids. they have different divisions and equities. they have climate issues. we really have to deal with loneliness, learning loss, and the disconnection that kids feel today. it makes it much harder when teachers are underpaid, and overworked. they have to deal with the noise of culture. >> to create a welcoming environment, they have to show up for that. we saw the story about absenteeism among students. across the country, students have been absent at record rates since school has reopened during the pandemic. more than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021- 22 school year.

before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school. 6.5 million additional students became absent, according to the data that has occurred. what is causing the? >> several causes for that. interesting, in these years, we got $5 million worth of grants for active school. a lot of online learners went door knocking, to get kids back to school. we heard from people who said they have to work. high school kids. others who said they don't want to take tests anymore, and others who are really disconnected, it includes one of these other things that the washington post did for that story. maybe we should do community schools. we have services around schools. make the school the center of community. what we are proposing, is a

real solution for these communities and campaigns. this is not just to wrap services around school. this is important for the social and emotional need. we are creating a will of the community for other families. something else i am looking at, is something that i learned back teaching at a career tech education school. people were trying to kill them. we are making school fun and relevant for kids. looking at music, and art, we are looking at the after school activities. i taught history. career test education works. not just in the traditional ones like welding, or carpentry, but culinary and healthcare. we had all of the new work. i was looking at the

presentation. we have a manufacturing renaissance in these countries with president joe biden. this is the work on the inflation reduction act, so why don't we create these starting in high school? you can't feel that there is something there for them. what is my data point? 94% of these kids graduate from high school antisocial. what makes school fun, interesting, and engaging? these are the same, intensive charters. we have the same, intensive privates. they are fairly small. it this is the disk that is looking at the agreement. we are looking at the agencies and the connections. >> thank you for joining our

conversation. president of the american federation for teacher demonstration. find them online. phone lines, as you told them, democrats and republicans. as we often do when you join us, especially line for teachers and students. they can call in and ask questions. >> before you take a question, can i say to all of those students and parents, we are going to do a great a year as we possibly can. he we are number one. thank you. >> a moment ago, you mentioned taking tests. they have show that test scores have suffered for students across grades. how do you fix that?

how do you catch kids up? how do you look at these test scores that we are worrying about? >> i think we are not starting up again. that is not the issue. we want kids to have the agency. we have particularly given the applied they are not about applications. we have to be focused on the application. we have to have an discerning fact from fiction. i think what is going to happen, the test scores will go up when kids have a sense of being in school. if they want to be back in school, and they want to be connected with their community, you're going to see test scores go up. we have to accelerate.

>> we have another question. we have headlines from nbc news. once again, it wasn't scrambled this year. we have defined another shortage. >> we have a new website that was tracking the teacher shortage. we are trying to use it getting the name. we will get it up. we have a real teacher shortage. they don't want to leave it. they feel overworked, and overburdened. it is the former secretary of state. it is targeting people. that is not good. they want to have decent pay. we want to have some kind of agency over their work.

we are looking at the communities. this is what they are looking at. the president said we should give teachers a raise. we had another standing ovation. teachers feel really depressed. some of them are leaving because of that. that is the worst problem. we have new people trying to come in. people see that the teachers are not treated with it. that is a real problem. >> is it a teacher shortage? is that the website? is that what they are referring to? this is how that lags.

this is what they actually see. it is getting covered up a lot. it is completely covered up. they have a warm body, and a classroom. this is opposed to someone who has expectations. they have other areas. >> we have another heat map of where the shortage is. >> you can look at that map. you can also see a lot of it. not all of it, and a lot of it. it is looking at where teachers are most underpaid. >> you are talking about florida and texas. >> teacher shortages.com. i have a few for you already.

new haven, connecticut, you are on. >> this is the federation teachers president in new haven, connecticut. we are excited about the real solutions in new haven. we are bringing hands-on learning experiences to our students. we know that they matter. this is where we come to the improvements. >> i'm going to be in new haven in a couple of weeks. i'm trying to see this. we have done a really good job wrapping our business around schools. we are trying to integrate social, emotional, and academic

work. >> this is what this does. new haven has done this. they have done this over the course of the last year. we have different projects that we have done with educators writing. this is what we saw. we stopped limited burnout. teachers have more economy over their work. they weren't treated like others. they knew what to do. the principal said, let's try to make sure that happens. we actually looked at the services that kids needed. they felt better about this. i think this is a real solutions campaign. this happens with teachers and

parents. stop looking at the politics. actually look at what happens. this is anywhere in the country. if it is in a republican area, or another action, it is the alchemy that happens. this is between teachers, kids, and families. we are trying to make sure that we help kids. they don't have the resources. the building is so hot in the summer. this is what people are thinking. you cannot open windows in a respiratory illness section. they are really beaten-down. >> we have another line for republicans. good morning. >> thanks for taking my call her. i feel like i have been forced to be unemployed.

i am an experienced teacher. masters degree, space certified. new york, new jersey, and florida. they are trying to keep a substitute position. i'm a very experienced teacher. this is from prior students all the time. this was a great experience from the classroom. this was another instructor that was trained not only as a cpa, but others. >> why do you think you can find employment? >> i have tried even local schools. i'm getting the song and dance. we will see if we need anybody. >> i'm all about solutions. i'm all about trying to solve things. with that kind of credential, and the fact that you want to teach, why don't you just write me at our website?

look me up at the website. we will get to you. steve, from wynwood. let's see if we can help you. if you want to teach, and you have the cpa credential, let's see what we can do. i agree with you. there is far too much bureaucracy. the number one issue that teachers talk to me about things all the time, is get rid of the paperwork. let me focus on teaching. direct message me on twitter. i can't because of all of the threats i have gone in life. i cannot give you my email anymore. get to me. either on twitter, dm, and let's see if we can help you. >> atwater, ohio. teacher line. good morning. >> a morning. i have a question.

i just retired at the end of last year. i wanted to ask you this. i agree with everything you say. chronic absenteeism among teachers and students, went rapid after covid. it is about one of the things that we have seen in my years of teaching. i was just trying to not raise kids. we are introducing common core, and state testing. i feel like teachers were all of a sudden, looking at their pace increasing dramatically. some students were struggling to keep up. it took away the autonomy and independence. we did some amazing things prior to that. i was doing my co-teaching. that needs to change. we hope they get it. they move on. it took the fun out of teaching. i saw kids not enjoying education like they did.

do you see that as being part of the problem? is that just me? >> first off, thank you for teaching. >> we did that for a long time. this was one of the last things i was able to do. can we help all those moms at that point? they are trying to be left to raise their kids. this was all about the inequity. we actually fix that. i'm so glad that you came back to teach. this is the problem with common core. it was another attempt to really get to deep curriculum knowledge across the country. it became common core testing.

not common core teaching. teachers felt like they were on an assembly line, just to produce test scores, as opposed to really helping these kids. that is why it was thrown out. there was so much about it. it did limit everything that teachers like you had. we actually addressed how to teach kids. we knew how to meet their needs. we were not always looking at it. this is what somebody gave you. >> how much input should be happening? how much input should parents have? when and how should that input be given? >> is going to shock a lot of people who are calling in. neither parents nor teachers have enough input on curriculum.

neither of us do. there are places that actually have programmatic ways of getting to it. this is on another level. the curriculum is done on a state level. they should have some latitudes on a state level. they have curriculum committees. they are reporting to the state commissioner. this is what should happen. we should say that parents and teachers should be looking at the curriculum. we have real input right here. we should be moving from both parents and teachers. that is getting to the question of what you need to do. what happened in terms of all of these culture wars? what happened right there? we have another process in most places about when the book gets

into reading. we have all of these processes. there is real input that happens. when something turns out to be inappropriate, we have a process to actually deal with that. this is what is happening now. this takes florida differently. most of whom they don't have kids ready. this is another person who actually pushed everything through. they were helping them. this is the book i brought with me. they did the poem during the inauguration. 24 hours after she did that beautiful poem. i did not hear anyone say it was problematic. it was beautiful. it was great for elementary

school teachers. who hasn't even been reading it? they were a holocaust denier. we have to use these processes. they create input for both parents and teachers. we have to have agencies in the input. >> i want to look at it. we have one of the founders of the group read this was part of her name. they were looking at all of this. >> we haven't invested any money in promoting, or trying to recruit. i will tell you exactly what it is. the media, and the national news, comes out and says that this is not happening in public schools. they are opening the backpack of her child. she is going to see the problems. it turns out that they are the only organization that stands

with parents. they are seen as educational failures in america. let this play out with what has happened. they followed it up with all of that this year. we have the lowest reading scores since the 1980s. they are not reading on grade level. this was in charge of public education. why are my children not learning? >> your thoughts? >> this is starting with pta. >> we were trying to rise. we have parents together that have 5 million parents ready to go. >> this was all fantastic grade >> don't divide and conquer.

>> we are looking at these different curriculums. >> they don't do what she just said. this was all done by the state. >> frankly, it is different. it was very good. >> it was all about the history. >> it is all about the people. >> is another problem. >> it is all about these problems. they have another position. >> this is where they have called it from the extremist

groups. >> i will talk to anybody about trying to solve it. they have a learning loss, and loneliness. you have to work with the teachers, and not try to create it. good morning. just picking up on what you just said, the absolute importance of parent engagement in the child's experience in school. with that and come up with that said, can you tell the viewers if you ll oppose or support parental notification by the school whens their student or their child is requesting to use different names or perhaps transition. do you think it's a good thing

when the schools keep that from parents? i personally don't. i think it's horrible but let'sr hear your opinion. >> let me ousay this to you in very personal way. i figured out that i was when i was in high school. i confided to one of my teachers about it. i love my parents. i would've hated if that s teacher told my parents. i wasn't ready to tell my parents at that point. ug i wasn't. i didn't know what i was or what i wanted to do. so, this is the questions. t these are the tough issues that teachers have all the time. if somebody confides or does something -- if something is done that is harming or hurting the kids, absolutely we have to talk to parents. but what if somebody confides in you and says i don't know what i am? i don't know who i am? what do you do? so, what i did as a teacher, is

i go to the guidance counselor and a go to the others and we de try to figure out what's going on and we try to make a decision in the best interest of the kids. nd >> you were on the other side of that when you were a teacher too? >> yes. and so, these are really ohard most of the time i lean to, we have to tell the parent, but what if you have a situation like this, particularly with trans kids, and they don't know what to do? and so, we have to try to work this through in a way that is in the best interests of kids and i'm not saying we get it ay right all the time. we don't. but there is a fine line here. and i say this personally as a s kid who experienced it and i didn't tell my parents until i was a lawyer. until i o was ready to actually deal with their reaction to it. so, it's just a matter of, what

do we do? i don't think there is a right line here in terms of what we do. and what's happening is, i want to say one more thing here. kids -- we have to meet the needs of kids. and we have to make sure the c families are involved. we have to create a trusting, collaborative setting and that requires us to work with parents, regardless of ideology. and that is why it's really in important to have parental -- >> this is nina in new york. good morning. >> good morning. thank you for addressing the curriculum. i am a retiree and going back to everything that i've been an listening to -- thank you for touching on the moms groups that are trying to divide

parents and teachers because we need to parents and teachers together so that we can -- and what you just explained -- teach our kids and raise our kids without getting staff burnout and without getting to a teacher shortage and i wanted to flip the script. i know you've been around the country and schools just id started. for meus, it came in today. but what innovative programs have you seen while visiting p schools or what is on the rise out there so that our kids can engage or, perhaps, you've seen experimental learning. i know we have career technical education programs and career pathways to help kids. let's get that out there. what are we doing? >> you know, this new strategy that we have, a lot of it is from places where we've seen things work like wrapping

service around in terms of community schools. like making sure that we are helping teachers help kids withs literacy. so, not only are we giving out lots of books when others are m. trying to ban them, we've given out i think 9 million books am thus far in book fairs and things like that, bringing families together, but, we have something called reading universe and we just did our american educator, another one of my -- we did the american educator literacy magazine this year which is all chock full toa parents and to teachers about how to help kids learn. >> that's something else you brought today. >> and really be joyful and confident readers. but what we are also doing for teachers is that we are -- most

of us either did our lesson plans late into the night or li early in the morning or all s weekend long. so, what happens -- i wasn't a literacy teacher. so, what happens if one of yours kids you see is having a problem decoding words. you see it. and you are not a literacy teacher or a literacy coach. so we know with wta and something called reading universe, a free website, wta has now produced, so that we can actually help just in time, parents and teachers, if we see kids having problems with literacy and get some tools to help just in time. st that is the kind of stuff we are doing but the last thing i will say is you just hit on what is my school love interest these days which is career tech

ed and experiential learning. ee the more hands on learning we nc do, the more kids feels agency, work in teams, get the practical skills they need, when they graduate from high school -- 60% of our kids don't go to college. let's make sure they are gr prepared for life and these kinds of programs, we have 2200 certifications available according to -- usa. ho if we start in high school, not community college or technical schools but thhigh school. do things like culinary. do things like healthcare. do things like cybersecurity. do things like i.t. help train up kids to take i these job in advanced manufacturing. could you imagine what it would mean in terms of changing the t country and kids feeling better about themselves and families feeling like schools are reallyw delivering for them? >> about 10 minutes left with

randy of the american federation of teachers. we will head to kathy in delaware. good morning. >> good morning. i'm concerned about the fact ng that you are blaming parents for children not going into the teaching profession. i think that is just an excuse. >> i wasn't actually blaming parents. i was giving you a poll result that we had from last year. it was a poll from last year. that said when parents were asked, they said they loved their kids teachers but they didn't want their kids to go into teaching. i >> now that you've filibustered on the time, i iwould like to finish what i was saying. >> i'm sorry. >> millions of dollars of union dues are going to the democratic party so that agendao for dei pushing parents out of decision-making for their children, low test scores from our nation compared to other

nations, demonizing the whites in the school curriculum and you are double dipping to hundreds of thousands of p dollars of the taxpayers money because you don't even step foot in a classroom to teach. i'm wondering why you have the audacity to blame parents as your agenda has done and keeping the parents out of the important decisions in their children's lives. >> so i have clearly failed in my teaching in c-span today, because i didn't say any of that stuff. and so, i'm sorry that you feele that way about me, but i love parents. i am a grandparent myself. ea i think that we really need to work with parents all the time. and, i think that it doesn't matter in terms of ideology. we have to unite the country

and create community regardless of ideology and i'm sorry that there was nothing that i said today that made you actually say, maybe she really does care about this stuff. so i'm sorry that i wasn't effective. >> the headline from today's on washington post, masking at schools remains divisive in a time of a new surge in covid. ha should there be masking in k-12 schools again? >> what we really need to do in k-12 schools is fix the ventilation. the most important thing we cano do, and i will get to masking in a second. the most important thing we dca do when we have respiratory illnesses is have really good fresh air that moves the air when you have this kind of nd respiratory virus and whether it's rc or asthma or covid. i think because of all of the

-- i am not a public health person. i am a teacher and i am a lawyer and i have watched and looked at all of the work in or terms of public health. good fitting masks actually protect people. they protect you and they d protect the people around you, h particularly if you are sick. that is what they do. but, i don't think we are going to get to a place anymore, in th this moment of time, that requires masks because there is no public health. el the fight about safety for ourselves and others, unfortunately has been overcome by the disinformation about masks and i say this as someone who is an asthmatic, who reallye labored very intensively every time i had to wear a mask. but i just think we've lost the battle and so, making sure that masks are available and that people who are sick have to wear them, even though we don't

have any kind of rules that require that, morally, they should, because if they don't, l they are going to get other people sick. but, it's going to be voluntary and no stigmatizing for either people who wear masks or peoples who don't wear masks, but if we do something about ventilation, it will deal with much of the rt airborne issues in covid. >> this is felicia. the line for educators. good morning. >> good morning. first, let me thank you for your leadership in the tradition of albert and all of the great education innovators that came before. c my grave concern is for democracy itself. teachers, as you know, and first responders on the ,

frontline of democracy, we are defending it every day. and as a florida resident, there is real reason to be alarmed by the attacks on ac books, teachers, diversity, and all the things that make america great. and they keep america -- ok democracy function functioning. how can we fight back on these book bans and these assaults onh our profession and on democracy itself. >> i would say that at this point, if you believe any of these polls, there has been a few of them that have come out in the last few weeks. most of america is with you. most people believe that the book bans are not good. what they also do is they actually limit the freedom of parents who want their kids to read these books. so, people want it taught in schools. people want to make sure that t books are available. appropriate books. age-appropriate books are available to our kids and that libraries have books, but i oo think the question that you are

asking is a bigger one than that, which is, how do you have a democracy where -- or how do you have a country that is governed in a way where the will of the people is respected and where every voice is respected? and where even when we disagree with each other, we can actually get solutions instead of fears and instead of completely undermining the human dignity of each other. and that is the work we have to do in schools and that is the work we have to do in di communities and that is the work of democracy and that is what we are trying to do. thank you for wanting to do it. >> one or two more phone calls with randi weingarten this or morning. linda in florida. line for republicans. good morning. linda, are you with us? got to stick by your phone, linda. this is judy in colorado. line for democrats. good morning.

>> hi, randi. thank you for your leadership. m i am a retired teacher and i ran for the state legislature and served on the education committee. i am now the chair of ian organization called advocates for public education policy here in colorado and our organization is fighting against the privatization and corporatization of our public schools. and, we believe that the high- stakes testing that is required by the federal government, needs to change, because we aree taking away the authenticity of teaching and the professionalism of teachers. could you speak to what is happening in houston and could you also speak to the corporate and the private money that is coming in and we believe it's destroying our public education. >> i think john is going to bo

have to invite me back to do ed all of those topics but let me just say this about two of what you said. which is that, llstill, today, over the course of decades, 8 between 85 and 90% of parents and -- send their kids to public schools and that's where lots of different charters and private schools and things like that. this new voucher movement right now about universal vouchers in that you see in florida that's been paying for disney trips and kayaks and things like that which most people would think was inappropriate, this movement to defund public schools is very worrisome because what's going to end up happening is that, if the public schools don't get the money that they need to serve all the kids, who are the kids who are going to fall behind? who are the kids who are at risk? and i think it's atnot just corporatization or io

privatization but the sense of taking money away from kids who really need it. and making sure that we have that for all kids and so that is a fight we have to have. the second piece that you said, and i think that's true. i think you heard earlier even in one of the tapes, the weaponization of test scores. e what happened in europe is really different from what's happened in america. in europe, in several places, schools were a priority. not ours. not restaurants. and there was consistency in terms of what to do for covid and when covid rates went up, schools got closed again but they were open as much as they could because schools were a ey priority and test scores went down there as well but if you look at the place where they have the best test scores, finland, they don't do high test -- stakes testing.

they meet the needs of kids and get teachers much more agency. so, we need to learn from other places. we need to actually have ways vi of assessing where kids are but, having it too high-stakes as opposed to meeting the needs of kids is wrong and i agree with you. we should change that accountability system. >> you are going to be back on capitol hill next week, september the 13th alongside a high-profile group of people, the likes of mike zuckerberg and bill gates. what are you going to be talking about? >> artificial intelligence, chatgpt, and, i know this is going to -- lots of people look at things for what's wrong. what are the problems. we look at things for, how do e we use social media and how do we use technology? this is a game changer. we have to make sure that we y protect people's security and we deal with this information

but, this can really be at helpful, just like the calculator. but the calculator did the tp math. chatgpt can really be helpful and it can be helpful in teaching and other ways, but we have to make sure that the progress and the responsibility on the progress kind of lines up together -- we are meeting with members of congress that day. i was really honored to be invited by senator schumer and i'm glad he's taking leadership and trying to bring both the public, civic society, and the tech folks together with the senate to say, what do we do. >> randi weingarten is the president of the american federation of teachers or aft.org. we will of course invite you

back. the former capital police chief testifies about security failures that occurred on january 6, 2021 during the attack on the u.s. capital. he testifies before a health administration oversight subcommittee, live, today, beginning at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span three. and online at c-span.org. >> healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work. when citizens are truly influenced. get informed, straight from the source, on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to go wherever you are. the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> joining us this morning is dr. benjamin, executive

director of the