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throughout the day, weekends at 5:00 and 9:00 pm eastern, catch washington today, listen to c- span anytime, just tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio, powered by cable. at the start of a new school year, we are welcoming back the president of the 1.7 million member american federation of teachers, as you look at the year ahead, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing teachers this school year? >> i think the biggest challenge is first off, it is great to have back-to-school, my home local, new york city, today is the first day of school for all of those kids so i'm wishing all of them the best year, even though it is 95 degrees heat which is always a problem everywhere, when you don't have air conditioning. but, i think what has happened, the same problems that afflict the nation afflict the schools.

because school schools are really a melting pot of e, everything going on in the nf nation, whatever you want to say, it is basically, we are dealing with everything going on. so, the division, the hate, disinformation is all really hard to overcome when what we should be doing in schools is creating a welcome and safe environment and ensuring that every school, every public school is a place that parents want to send their kids, and for kids to thrive. there is a lot of effects of covid as well as effects of division and inequities and climate issues that we have to deal with, loneliness, learning loss, the disconnection that kids still feel, so it makes it much harder when teachers are underpaid and overworked and have to deal with the noise of the cultural wars.

>> you can create a welcoming environment but the students have to show up for that, i'm sure you saw the story about absenteeism among students. across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schooled reopened during the pandemic, at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data, only 50% of students missed that much school. and 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent. what is causing that? >> there several things, what is interesting is that in 2021- 22 we did $5 million worth of grants for back to school and a lot of our members went knocking on doors to get kids back to school. and we heard from people who said, and kids who said, well i have to work. as school kids. and others who said well, i

really don't want to take tests anymore. and others who were just really disconnected. so, one of the things that the washington post after that story said is maybe we should do community schools. wrap the services around schools and make the schools the center of the community. what we are proposing is real solutions for kids and communities campaign which is not just wrapping services around schools, that is really important in terms of social and emotional needs and creating the school as a real community first for kids and families that something else i'm proposing is something that i learned back in teaching at a career tech school when people were trying to kill career tech schools which is experiential learning, hands-on learning, making school son and relevant for kids. so, if we created different pathways for kids, in music,

art, afterschool activities, i tried ap history and debate, career tech work and not just the traditional ones like welding or carpentry but culinary, healthcare, all the new work, made in america work, we have a manufacturing renaissance in the country because of joe biden, because of the work in the inflation reduction act and the infrastructural work, why don't we create these career paths starting in high school, so when kids feel like there is something there for them, they see something, they feel it, and what is my data point? 94% of kids who go to qualified programs, graduate from high school on time, and 70% go to college. so, let's make school fun. and interesting and engaging and lure the kids back because

those numbers, that is the samel in terms of charters and the same in terms of private, we just saw doug harris do a big study that shows school enrollment issues are fairly small, but this issue of ensuring the kids feel connection, that is the big issue. >> let me invite randy weinberg, president of the american federation of teachers, of course we can find them online, and as we often do when you join us, especially for teachers and students to call and ask your questions, 202-748-8000. >> and can i just say to all of those students and parents, we are going to do as great of a year as we possibly can because you are number one and two, our

members and teachers and parents and school bus drivers, thank you, thank you, thank you because they are just the salt of the earth. >> you mentioned taking tests, survey after survey has shown test scores have suffered for students across grades since the pandemic. how do you fix that? how do you catch them up and what you tell teachers when it comes to these test scores that we keep hearing about? >> we keep seeing this year there has been a take up again, and i don't think that is the issue, i think the issue is what you raised earlier on about kids having agency and wanting to be in school and application and particularly, what these tests are, the math and english, they are about memorization, they are not about application. in this age of a.i. and chatgpt, we have to be

focused on critical thinking and on discerning fact from fiction. i think what is going to happen is the test scores will go up when kids feel a sense of wanting to be in school. when you start seeing kids feeling like they want to be connected, then you will see ri the test scores going up because we have to accelerate nd learning. >> do teachers want to be back in the classroom? a question, a headline from nbc news, from crisis to catastrophe, the schools scramble once again this year to find teachers. >> there is a new website that is really tracking the teacher shortage that i'm starting to use, i'm forgetting the name, but we will get it, but there is a real teacher shortage. people are leaving who don't want to leave because they feel overworked and targeted. i mean, when a guy like pompeo

calls what teachers do filth, that is not good, but a lot of times, a lot of teachers have stated they want to make a difference in kids lives, they want to be listened to, they want to have decent pay, they want to have some agency over their work, they want to be able to meet the needs of the kids. so what you are seeing is the community is understanding and the teachers are underpaid, and teachers feel both really pressed and holding the weight of the world and some are leading because of that. but, the worst problem is that we are not getting enough new people to come in because kids see, young people see the teachers are not treated well. so, when parents say, i love my

kids teacher but i don't want my kid to become a teacher, that is a real problem because teachers really make a difference in the lives of others. >> is a teacher shortages, is that the website they are referring to? >> yes, thank you, and because we don't have a national databank, we have a national databank that lags but we are looking state after state and what they see is we have s actually a higher shortage this year than last year and it gets covered up a lot, like houston, completely covered up because they say there is a warm body in the classroom as opposed to somebody with a certification in those areas. >> and you , can see state-by- state the shortages, with the a heat map of where these shortages are, the teacher shortages. >> yes, and when you look at that map, what you have on your

hand the ipad, you also see a lot of it also tracks where teachers are most underpaid and where is the most cultural wars. >> leslie, new haven, connecticut, good morning.>> good morning, this is the president of federation of teachers in connecticut and i just want to say we are really excited about the real solutions , the campaign in new haven, we are committed to creating joyful and competent readers and bringing hands-on learning experiences for our students, doing the community connections and of course we know that is

good for our students. can you say more about why these real solutions are also going to help with the teacher shortage and how it impacts our working conditions when we commit to these improvements? >> well, and i'm going to be in new haven in a couple of weeks to see, because they have done a really good job wrapping services around schools because we have to integrate social, emotional and academic work. that is how kids come to us in the world and we have to integrate them and that means we have to have an infrastructure of those services. but, what this does and new haven has done this and you have done this over the course of the last few years. there is a wellness project that we did with educators rising. and what we saw is that we stopped burnout or limited burnout when teachers had more autonomy over their work, when they were just told what to do, when they said i need x or y

and the principal said yeah, let's try to make sure that happens. when they could actually get the services that kids needed, they felt better about this. so, i do think that this real solutions campaign, what tends to happen is that teachers and parents and kids, if you stop looking at the politics in washington, d.c. and actually a look at what happens in the school, anywhere in the country, whether the school is in a republican area or in a democratic area, the alchemy that happens between teachers and kids and families is such that they are really trying to make sure we help kids and when teachers can't, when they don't have the resources, when they don't have small enough class

sizes, when the building is so hot in the summer or in the file that you can't teach and people are fainting. when you can't open windows with a respiratory illness, you see that teachers feel really beaten-down.>> steve, on the line for republicans, good morning.>> yes, thank you for taking my call, i was a teacher and i feel like i was forced to be unemployed even though i'm a teacher, an experienced teacher with a masters degree, state certified in more than one state, new york, new jersey and florida, and i wasn't even able to be paid a substitute position, and a very experienced teacher gets feedback from prior students all the time, about what a great experience they had in my classroom, being an instructor who was trained as a teacher, not only cpa priya >> why do you think you can't find employment, steve?

>> i have tried even local schools. >> steve, why don't you do this -- >> i get a song and dance, well, we will see if we need anybody. >> steve, i'm all about solutions, i'm all about trying to solve things, so with those credentials and the fact that you want to teach, why don't you just write me at our website, aft.org, or just right on the website, we will get to you, and we will see if we can help you because if you want to teach and you have that cpa credential, let's see what we can do, because i agree with you, there's far too much bureaucracy and far too much paperwork. the number one issues that teachers talk to me about all the time is get rid of the paperwork, stop it already, ve let's focus on teaching. but, go to aft.org, or on

twitter, because of all the threats i have gotten in life i cannot give you my email anymore, so you can understand that. but, just get to me on either twitter, or get to me on aft.org and let's see if we can help you. >> in ohio, this is pam. line for teachers, good morning. >> good morning, randi, i have a question, so i just retired at the end of last year, i have to admit i miss it already, butr i wanted to ask you, because i totally agree with everything you say and chronic absenteeism among students and teachers went rampant after covid. one of the things that i have seen in my years of teaching, not as long of a career as some because i did have to raise kids, but with the state testing, i feel like teachers were all of a sudden, their pace increased dramatically, my

students on iep were struggling to keep up but it took away the autonomy and independence, we did some amazing things prior to that, and that changed and it was just thrown at the wall, hope they get it and moved on. it took the fun out of teaching, i saw the kids not enjoying education like they did. so, do you see that as being a part of the problem or is it just me? >> yes, first off, thank you for teaching and thank you for all the years that you taught. i was president of the teachers union in new york city for a long time and we ended up, one of the last things i was able to do was to help all of those moms at that point, it was mom's more than dads but, they left for a few years to raise their kids and then came back but didn't get the same pension and things like that. there was an inequity and we

actually fixed that and i'm so glad you came back to teach after you raised kids. but, the problem with common core is it was an attempt to actually really get to deeper curriculum knowledge across the country. like european countries do but it became common core testing, not common core teaching so teachers felt like they were on an assembly line to produce test scores as opposed to meeting the needs of kids, and that's why it was thrown out and that's why there was so much about it. but, it did limit the agency that teachers like you had to actually address how to teach kids, how to meet their needs and not always look at it through the pacing calendar that somebody gave you.>>

staying on curriculum for a second, how much input, who should design the curriculum when it comes to k-12? how much input should parents have and when and how should that be given?>> so, this is going to shock a lot of people who are coming in. neither parents nor teachers have enough input on curriculum. neither of them do. but, there are places that actually have good programmatic ways of getting to good curriculum. so, on a state level, curriculum is basically done on a state level, not on the en district level, districts have some latitude but on a state level so there are curriculum committees, there are people who are put on the committees, they report to the state commissioner, this is what should happen. we often say that parents and teachers should be on those committees. give input, so there is real

input. but, there should be real input for both parents and teachers in terms of curriculum. but, that gets to the question of what do you do, like what happened in terms of all of these cultural wars and banning books? there's also a process in most l places about when a book is read, when a book gets put in a library. there are these processes, their school board meetings and real input that happens. and so, when something turns out to be inappropriate, there is a process to actually deal with that. what has happened now, take florida, 60% of the book bans in florida are done by 11 people, most of whom don't have kids in school. the person who actually pushed

to ban amanda gordmans book, the hill b klein -- the hill we klein, i didn't hear anybody say that was problematic, it was beautiful, it was great for elementary school kids. who pushed to ban that? somebody who hasn't even read it. somebody who is a holocaust denier, so we have to use the ho processes that create input for both parents and teachers. they both have to have agency and the input of curriculum. >> on parent input, i want to get your thoughts on the group, moms for liberty, i'm sure you have heard of them. the founder, this is about a minute of what she had to say.>> we haven't invested any money in promoting or trying to recruit or grow in that

fashion, it has been authentic grassroots growth, and i will ac tell you exactly what it is, the media and the national news comes out all the time and says this is not happening in public schools, that is not happening, and a mom opens the backpack of her child and she sees the curriculum and she sees the problems. so she googles who she can go to to help, and it is mom's for liberties, parents are really starting to see the educational failure in america. let's lay out what happened, the scores last year came out and followed up this year, the lowest math scores in the recorded history of the united states, the lowest reading scores since the 1980s, two thirds of american fourth graders are not reading on that level. who is making these decisions and why all my children not learning customer>> that interview from back in july. your thoughts, randi weingarten? >> first of all, there are a

lot of fantastic parent groups, starting with the pta of america, people have been volunteering for years, then there is moms rising, parents group together that has a platform of 5 million parents. parents, thank god are looking for ways to be engaged in their kids schools, that is fantastic. the other parent groups i talked about don't do divide and conquer and frankly the curriculums in terms of florida, they don't do what she just said, they are curriculums that are done by the state and you saw this year, what the state is doing by changing the curriculum of history and frankly that has been promoted by people like ron desantis and people like, you know, let me just say people like ron desantis and ultimately what we

need to do is we need to try to solve these problems which by ar the way, the new research says, according to doug harrison and things like that, that these problems actually were caused by the disconnection and by the issues around covid. but, when we talk about solving these problems, i will talk to anybody, even a group that basically one of the chapters used a hitler quote. i will talk about trying to solve the problems our kids have, loneliness, learning loss, literacy, but you have to work with the teachers, not try to create division. >> you mentioned desantis, let's go to florida, this is robert. good morning. >> good morning, and good morning to randi, just picking up on what you just said, the absolute importance of parents engagement in the child's

experience in school, and with that said, can you tell the viewers if you oppose or support parental notification by the school when their student or their child is requesting to use different names or perhaps transitioning, do you think it is a good thing when the schools keep that from parents i personally don't, i think that is horrible. but, i want to hear your opinion. thank you. >> let me just say this to you in a very personal way, i figured out that i was gay when i was in high school, i confided in one of my teachers about it. i hated my parents and i would have hated if that teacher told my parents, i wasn't ready to tell my parents at that point, i didn't know what i was and what i wanted to do.

these are the tough issues that teachers have all the time. if somebody confides, if something is done that is harming or hurting the kids, absolutely, we have to talk to the 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? what i did as a teacher, i go to the guidance counselor, i go to others and we try to figure out what is going on and we try to make a decision that is in the best interest of the kid. i was on the other side of that when i was a teacher, too. so, these are really hard. most of the time 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. so, we have to try to work this through in a way that is in the

best interest of kids. and i'm not saying we get it right all the time, we don't, but there is not a bright line here and i say this very personally, as a kid who experienced it and i didn't tell my parents until i was a lawyer. until i was ready to actually deal with their reaction to it. so, you know, it's just a matter of, what do we do, i t don't think there is a bright line here in terms of what we do. and what is happening, i just want to say one more thing, we have to meet the needs of the kids. and we have to make sure the families are involved and 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 important to have parental

involvement.>> the line for educators, this is nina in west hempstead, new york. good morning. >> good morning, thank you for addressing the curriculum, i'm a retiree, and going back to everything that i have been listening to and thank you for touching on the moms groups that are trying to divide parents and teachers, because we need them together, and what you just explained, we need to raise our kids without getting staff burnout and without getting to a teacher shortage. and i wanted to flip the script, i know you have been around the country, schools just started. for us, new york city kids came in today, but what of it of programs have you seen while visiting schools or what is on the rise out there so that our

kids can engage or perhaps you have seen experimental learning, i know we have technical education programs and career pathways to help kids. so, let's get that out there, what are we doing? >> so, this new strategy that co we have, a lot of it is from places where we have seen things like in terms of community schools, and like making sure that we are helping teachers help kids with literacy, so not only are we giving out lots and lots of books when others are trying to ban them, we have given out 9 million books thus far in book fairs and things like that, bringing families together, but we have something called reading universe and we adjusted the american educator

literacy magazine this year. which is all chock full to parents and teachers about how to help kids learn. >> that is something you brought today that we can show the viewers. >> and really be joyful and confident readers. but we are also, like most of us, we either did our lesson plans late into the night or all weekend long, so what happens, i wasn't a literacy teacher, i was a high school social studies teacher, so what happens if one of your kids you see is having a problem decoding words, you see it and you are not a literacy teacher or literacy coach. so, we invested with wta in something called reading universe, a free website, wta has now produced so 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, that is the kind of stuff we are doing but last thing i will say, you just hit on what is my school love interest these days which is career tech and experiential learning. the more hands-on learning we do, the more kids feel agency, work with teens, getting 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 prepared for life and these kind of programs, we have 2200 certifications that are available according to skills usa. if we start in high school, not starting community college or technical schools but start in high school, do things like culinary, do things like healthcare, like cybersecurity,

do things like i.t., help train kids to take these jobs and could you imagine what it would mean in terms of changing the country and kids feeling better about themselves and families feeling like schools are really delivering for them?>> we have about 10 minutes left with randi weingarten . this is kathy, on the line for republicans. good morning. >> good morning. i'm concerned about the fact that miss randi weingarten is blaming parents for children not going onto 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 from last year that said, when parents were asked, they said they loved their kids

teachers but they didn't want kids to go into teaching.>> okay, i would like to finish what i was saying. >> i'm sorry. >> millions of dollars of union dues are going to the democratic party, so that agenda for di pushing parents out of decision-making for their children, low test scores from our nation compared to other nations, demonizing the rights of the school curriculum and you are double dipping to hundreds of thousands of dollars of the taxpayers money because you don't even step foot in the classroom to teach. i'm wondering why you have the audacity to blame parents and say that your agenda has kept 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. so, i'm sorry that you feel that way about me, but i love parents, i'm a grandparent myself, i think that we really need to work with parents all the time. and i think it doesn't matter in terms of the ideology, we have to unite the country and create connection and create community regardless of ideology. and i'm sorry that, there was nothing that i said today that made you say well, maybe she really does care about this stuff. so, i'm sorry that i wasn't effective. >> a headline from today's washington post, masking at schools remains divisive in this time of a new surge in covid, 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 cand do in terms of -- and i will

get to masking in a second, the most important thing we can do with respiratory illnesses is have really good fresh air that moves the air when you have moves the air when you have and whether it is rsp or asthma or covid, i think, because i am not a public health person, i'm a teacher, lawyer and i have watched and looked at all the work in terms of public health. good fitting masks actually protect people. they protect you and they protect the people around you 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 this moment of time that requires masks, because there'su no public health, the fight about safety for ourselves and

others, unfortunately has been overcome by the disinformation about masks. and i say this as somebody who is asthmatic, who really labored, very intensely every ha time i had to wear a mask. but i just think we have lost the battle, so making sure that masks are available, 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, they are going to get other people sick. but, it is going to be voluntary and no stigmatizing for either people who wear masks or people who don't. but if we do something about ventilation, it will deal with much of the airborne issues with covid. >> back to florida, fort pierce, this is felicia. the line for educators, good morning. >> first, thank you for your

leadership in all of the great education innovators that came before. my grave concern is for democracy itself, teachers, as you know, first responders on the frontline of democracy, we are defending it every day and h as a florida resident, there is real reason to be alarmed by the attacks on books, teachers, diversity, all the things that make america great and keep american democracy functioning.s how can we fight back on these book bans and on democracy itself? >> i would say at this point, if you believe in any of these polls, most of america is with you, most people believe that

the book bans are not good, and they actually limit the freedom of parents who want their kids to read these books. so, it is people that want honest history taught and in schools, people want to make sure that books are available, appropriate books. age-appropriate books are available to our kids that libraries have books. but, i think the question you are asking is a bigger one, which is, how do you have a democracy 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 even when we disagree with each other, we can actually get to solutions instead of just 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 the communities and that

is the work of democracy, and that is what we are trying to do and thank you for wanting to do it. >> time for one or two more phone calls with randi weingarten this morning , linda in florida. the line for republicans. good morning. >> [indiscernible]>> this is judy in brighton, colorado. line for democrats. good morning. >> hi, randi. thank you so much for your leadership, i really appreciate it. i'm a retired teacher and i ran for the state legislature, i served on the education committee, i am the chair of an organization called advocates for public education policy in colorado. and our organization is fighting against the prioritization of corporatization of our public schools. and i really believe that the high-stakes testing that is required by the federal government needs to change, because we are 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 private money that is coming in and we believe it is destroying our public education. >> i think john is going to have to invite me back to do all of those topics, but let me say this about two, which is that still today, over the course of decades, between 85% and 90% of parents send their kids to public schools. and that is with trips, with

kayaks and things like that, which most people think that was inappropriate. this movement to defund public schools is very worrisome because what is 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 that are going to fall behind, who are the kids that are at risk? and it's not just the corporatization or privatization, it is the sense of taking money away from kids who really need it. en in one ofe weaponization of test scores,ofe what happened in europe is different than what has happened in america. in europe, and several places, schools are priorities, not bars or restaurants, and there was a consistency in terms of what to d schools are priorities in europe. there was consistency in what

to do in terms of covet. schools were open as much as they could because schools were a priority. test scores went down there as well but if you look at the place where they had the best test scores, finland, they don't do testing. they do the things that i'm talking about and have real solutions meeting the needs of kids and giving teachers more -- we need to learn from other places. we need to actually have ways of assessing where kids are. having two high-stakes two as opposed to meeting the needs of kids is wrong. i agree with you. we should change that accountability system. >> we will be back here september the 13th. alongside bill gates, mark zuckerberg, what will you be talking about? >> ai.

i know this is going to, lots of people look at things for what is wrong for the problems. we look at things for, how do we use social media and how to use technology? this is a game changer. we have to make sure that we protect people security and we deal with disinformation. but this can really be helpful. just like the calculator. what the calculator did the math, this chat gpt can really be helpful. we have to make sure that the progress and the responsibility kind of winds up together. instead of the progress happening in's possibility logging mine. >> we are meeting with members of congress that day.

i was invited and honored to be invited by senator schumer. i am glad he is bringing the public civil society and the tech folks together to say, what we do? >> the president of american federation of teachers, aft.org. we will of course have you back.

? testimony from security officials on the use of ai technology. they address ai machine learning, employee training, and potential cyber security risks. this is just over an hour.