and, for an additional resource, there is a link on our web it to the national constitution center's interactive constitution. week on newsmakers, the president of the american federation of teachers, randi weingarten joins us. thank you for being here. we're also joined by two journalists from politico and the new york times. first, you risk wants to the president calling for teachers to be armed in schools -- your response. >> it is a terrible idea. . full stop. it showed no understanding that children and parents and educators all want and need

schools to be safe sanctuary for teaching and learning, not armed fortresses. not armed camps. it felt like oh, this is what the nra has wanted all along. this is now a new market for the gun manufacturers. this is where the president, after that listening session, to the conversation? if you think about it pragmatically, it is an insane a suggestion, because what are you going to do in terms of teachers? our kindergarten teachers going to wear their guns on their hips? are you talking about just handguns versus an assault rifle that can shoot 90 rounds in a minute? what happens if kids are rushing

along and a horribl hallway? what is a frightened teacher going to do? i could go through all of these unanswered questions, and the more questions you go through, the more you realize what an insane idea it is. and frankly, i was on the phone with about asked he thousand 60,000 teachers and other educators this week and we raised this idea as one of the ideas of the president had said. people saidally, no, this is crazy. then you saw what happened with the sheriff's deputy. so, the whole idea of "the good guy with the gun" was debunked. he had a gun but he was out why the school the whole time. for all of these reasons, it is

a terrible idea. teachers do wants to protect students. their instinct is to protect students. but we should not ever become a shooting gallery in the school. host: up to the also proposed -- the president also providing bonuses for teachers who are armed in schools. what do you make of that? randi: this is the irony that a president, when it comes to something that he thinks is important, he wants to pay first. as opposed to what we know is important, which is, how do you attract and retain great people in teaching? issue in west virginia this week, and it has been for a while. i was in charleston this week,

and i have never seen that level of anger and that number of educators in and around the capital of west virginia. , i, as you know, caitlin spend a lot of time in west havenia because they started a partnership with gail mansion and others, to initalize mcdowell county west virginia. i have spent a lot of time in west virginia. this is the issue there. teachers there are paid 48 out of 50th in the nation. and the teachers in the surrounding counties and states, are all paid a lot more. in fact, there are 1.8 million people who live in west virginia, 1.1 live in countenanc counties surrounded ,y other states which pay them

their teachers, between five and $30,000 more. the straw that broke the camel's back was not only that the teachers of west virginia not gotten raises in the last 10 years, that as a more and more republican-controlled date has given tax cuts to businesses which have not really increased economic development, teachers have not gotten raises. tax cuts have gone to businesses, pools have gotten cut, and at the same time, the premiums for health care have been shifted to teachers. have gotten caught and at the same time the premiums for health care have been shifted to teachers. teachers are seeing a decrease in their salaries, so that their salaries are lower than they were in 2012 do to the increase in health care premiums. and that in january, the republican legislature and governor justice divided that it

would -- decided that it was important to give correctional officers or raise -- which is important -- but proposed nothing for teachers. that level of disrespect was what sparked and provoked this. ultimately, what we need to do in west virginia is that teachers need to be assured that their health insurance plans are going to be funded. not just that there will be a patch on it until the day after election day. and they don't trust this legislature to do that. so that is why there is a strike at every single county in west virginia, they all closed. and parents are supporting teachers. they don't want teachers to be doing a second or third job at bedees when they should preparing papers. just like any other state in the

nation, -- i am a big coal person. veryminers and i are close, and they support the teacher. but, west virginia's economy is going to change. some coal may come back, but coal is not going to be the dominant industry there. you need to have a good public education system as a bridge to that. that is what the teachers are saying that the legislature refuses to listen. caitlin: if federal funding did come from the government, how do you think it should be used? if it were to come for school safety? >> i believe erika, that there are three facets we need to focus on when it comes to school safety. unfortunately, this comes from -- my knowledge on this is from the theories of terrible

incidents that happen in and around tools. even from handgun usage in schools when i was a president of the uft in new york city years ago. remember jefferson high school? or was a handgun there. so, there is a lot of work that has been done on this. i really want to lift up like abby clemens in sandy hook elementary school, people like her. like the teachers in marjorie douglas right now, who, like the kids at stoneman douglas, like the sandy hook promise -- they have taken these tragedies, these massacres and they have been relentless and tenacious in trying to fight for common sense reduction of gun violence measures, as well as safety

measures in schools, as well as resources for well-being and mental health measures. so, to school safety. i think that we need school safety resource officers at entrances of schools. i think communities should make a decision about whether or not he should be armed. i have spent much time with my compatriots in the civil rights movement, who are very concerned about police officer's in schools. so, let us talk about will safety officers, not uniformed police officers. let us talk about the training that they need to have. trainingt the bias that they need to have. i think people need to see and have the kind of sense of assurance that there will be

someone in or around a school, that is trained all throughout the country. that is number one. number two, as much as i hate all of the active shooter training, just like fire drills and other drills, we need to do this. but we cannot actually do this in a vacuum. we cannot have the drills, which -- we cannot have the guns locked up in classrooms, we cannot have the drills which are important, without also miggy sure that we have enough funding panoply of services, support services that children in america need today. whether it be guidance counseling, social work, school nurses, mental health support, be in the advent of opioid addiction -- we need to

have all of that. and not just target and say that cruz needed mental health services. that is after the fact. we tried to do with the new education law, is say that title iv should have a lot of the se services area at those two kinds of buckets should be there. and third to say this, two days before markland betsy devos put budget that actually reduced these things. a reduced afterschool programs, reduced school safety expenditures. and, the third thing is, and i know that it gets controversial -- but if canada can do this, if , ifyork state can do this connecticut can do this, we need to have common sense gun measures that restricts the ability of people to have access -15s and ak-47s and the

ammunitions that come with that. frankly, the gun manufacturers should not be immunized as they are in federal law. tobacco manufacturers were not immunized area auto manufacturers were not immunized, gunmen effect jurors should not be humanized. commonsense measures which do not intrude on the second amendment. if you talk to gun owners, of which i am not one, but if you talk to them, they will say very similar things. host: what, if any guidelines the teachers have if they have a troubled student in her classroom, what is their in the guidelines from the federal government, of how they are supposed to report to

authorities a troubled child who they feel could you threat? randi: let's put it this way. this has gone every which way in terms of federal rules and regulations. byh of this is governed state. and, there are federal law rights laws -- federal civil rights laws that also need to be in the mix. we have actually had to separate pushes on this. one of the things we have actually done, which i think we have done right is to actually not believe but to actually look at the data for the last few years. because, schools were suspending and expelling a is proportionate the kids they were suspending and expelling were

disproportionately black and brown. and that was wrong. so there has been a real focus on how we can find ways to make sure that we have the sort of justice program or social equity program, to ensure that we are meeting kids where they are, and where their needs are a method of using suspension and of using -- instead suspension and expulsion. that is one piece of work that needs to continue. that, separate and apart from someone like a nicholas cruz. if you talk to kids from stoneman douglas, many of the kids would say that everybody knew something was up with this kid. and the school actually did a lot of the right things. one of the stewards at the school said on saturday at a union meeting we had, the school had done everything right. there were about 200 teachers from broward, florida there.

the school had done everything right. the state had no resources. when he went to a mental facility, they did not track it, they did not follow it. the state did not know that the mother had died. the sheriff had said the were many other red flags. not just that the eye not following the tip. but, if you don't have the resources, how are people going to do anything tha but triage? the resources are very important. we have 50 districts or so who are talking about that and trying to push back. there are many advocates out there who are saying that let us mature our community schools have wraparound services. not just having a social worker or psychiatrist who is there to do a special education review or assessment, but having it to have real resources in a school.

for example, i was a teacher in brooklyn new york in the dinosaur age, in the 1990's, but we still had in my school , guidance counselors, and two days a week, a psychiatrist, social workers. one day, i will never forget this -- i am in a class and one of my kids comes into class looking completely vacuous. just, i mean, you could see it. you could touch it, you could feel it. she was a complete zombie. so i break every rule in the book, every rule. i leave my classroom. i take my kid. i hold her tight to me. i asked one of the kids to lead the class or whatever. i'm on the opposite side of the school, i will never forget this

-- i walk all the way around the guidance counselor's office and ice they, these, she needs help. and i know that the school and of these folks, everybody helped her. what happened? her father had been murdered. and she saw the will as safety. she saw my classroom as somewhere where she could get some degree of refuge. this is what we need in schools. if we do not have that in schools, kids are vulnerable. they are always going to fall through the cracks. this takes resources to riyadh and it should not just be for kids who have been a stigmatized with mental illness or a mental disability. kids have anxieties now, and we need to deal with it. and teachers now also have lots of anxieties. look at those teachers and in douglas. the same has happened in newtown

and in so many other situations. teachers have it in themselves to protect kids. that is their instinct. host: i wanted to talk to you about a major supreme court case. teacher unionson and labor unions, a threat they have been facing for a long time. with neil gorsuch on the court, it appears there is a conservative vote their to strike down the use of agency the, which members pay to eight in the use of collective bargaining. i would like to realistically ask you, can you talk about the financial threat to your membership goals. ? realistically, how bad could it be? randi: let me put the social studies teacher hat on for one second to say this. a lot of people have no idea what this case is about. in the united states of america, the private sector has something

called the nlra, the national labor relations act. employees can decide whether they want to have unions, who then negotiate the terms and conditions with employers. the public sector has the same thing. state by state by state. under the 10th amendment of the constitution, states can decide how they want to regulate activities with their employees. 23 states have decided that their employees are entitled to collective bargaining. if the union represents people, like teachers and new york city, then, your obligation is to represent everybody. and to do that, everybody pays a fair share. the people who decide not to be members, and people have the

complete ability to decide not to join, you still pay the care -- you paid a fair share for that representation. that decision was challenged by the right wing about 45 years ago in the case calle about the detroit board of education. in that case, a unanimous supreme court said the states have a right to do this and the unions have a right to do this. unanimously. the supreme court justices, in a case for years ago that was totally unrelated, said, come back to us because we think that case was decided wrongly. come back to us. and that is why you start to see this case. what this is is the right wing jannis did notke even bring the case, it was

brought by the governor of illinois. the right wing essentially once even more power than they have in the country. the people bringing the case are people like the kich brothers, the -- the koch brothers, the devos family and others. the koch brothers would not let republicans actually even give merit garland garland a hearing. , he nominates gorsuch who gets confirmed. this case goes to the court a a week later. we know that this is the koch brothers and all of those folks who just don't want unions to have a voice representing people, because they know,

historically and even now, if a person is actually represented rya by a union, they have better wages than if a person is not. they also do not want us to do the kind of political work that we do. so, to answer your question directly, what we know is that if there was no er campaign or anything else, probably what would happen is that over the course of a year or so, the theye who pay their fees, would say, maybe i don't want the union. maybe i do, maybe i don't. they would get those kinds of choices very directly. and probably about half of them would say, we don't want it. in our union, we have over 1.7 million members. right now there are about 87,000, many who are adjunct

professors. very few in a small district 12 fear. sphere. this is what we know will happen because we have already seen it. the koch brothers and others have announced their going to spend $400 million to break us, to break teachers unions, and try to undermine and destabilize public schools. their words again. so we think that what they're going to do is do a big public campaign that says, do you want a raise? get rid of your union dues. so given that, you really don't actually know -- we know that they want to use it as funding for the union, to have people

opt out. but this is what we are seeing. , all other teachers unions, this has been a cathartic moment for us. is brought byase these ideological interests who want to destroy workers'ability to have a better life, which is what unions do. if we did not have this case, it would be better if we did not have one, what this has done to our union is be transformative. because, people are talking with each other in a way that i have not even in a couple of decades. what we're seeing within our membership, is that when our membership actually sees and understands that it is the right wing who wants to take away their power, have a voice at the table, they are really

pissed. so this is a long winded way of saying, i don't really know, i know that they want to use it to a defined as. and the evidence is pretty clear. when unions have gone through this kind of antiunion changes, sweep of legal changes, then the voter share for democrats goes down. in michigan and wisconsin the aboutshare went down by 3.5% after these things were done in michigan and wisconsin. host: we have to leave it there. the president of the american federation of teachers. thank you for being this weeks "newsmaker." randi: thank you. host: we are back with our to reporters. erica green, the president has said that we should arm our teachers. we have just heard from the leader of the teachers union saying not a good idea. what has the effort and like on

-- what has the effort been like on the state level, and have states tried to this in the past? fewa: there have been a states that have allowed their school district to keep weapons in the school buildings if they choose. it is a community decision, and there are some who have opted to do so. i spoke to the superintendent of ohio yesterday who keeps weapons in the buildings. they have trained response teams composed of teachers, administrators, and school staff who are confidential. they are prepared to risk on safes,ey have biometric bullet-proof vest. and they say that they have three minutes before local was wonders can get to them and their teachers, so the school staff can get to a gun trigger. that is something that is cap and. the -- theia, the

kingsburg school district also allowed the teachers to carry weapons. that was revoked on january 1. through legislation signed by the governor. i spoke with that superintendent yesterday who was not happy that that had happened. so, it is a real possibility is states and local communities choose to take this route. caitlin: i think i would agree. there has been a lot of discussion recently about what the president is saying. what does it mean coming from the federal government? it what essentially amounts to an enormous costly mandate when it comes to purchasing the guns, training the teachers, possibly providing some sort of bonus for teachers trained to use these weapons.

i think that realistically it would be unlikely for congress to take up something like this. it seems like it would be more or less for states and local districts to decide. we had a story earlier this week that showed in states like texas where this is allowed, will districts are able to decide whether or not they want guns in their school buildings. they find that few teachers are comfortable with this idea. it is sort of few and far between and even the state don't allow it. host: erica, we also talked about the supreme court case that is going to be heard on monday. what impact have you heard this could have if unions lost the ability to charge non-union members that collective bargaining see? erica: basically, what randy thiserence, it would disempower the teachers.

the impact on the ground with teachers and administrators they represent. especially in this political climate, i have heard a lot of teachers express a lot of concern about what could happen to their rights as workers in states. we have not heard from the union , what a d funded union looks defundedwhat a union looks like, but in terms of a power, i could have a real impact. host: what about political clout? caitlin: teachers are a stall wart of grassroots organizing and fundraising. what remains to be seen is how much this decision what impact the unions financially and in terms of membership. both of those combined couldn't -- could definitely dampen their political activity. teachers unions are much an interval part of politics in their -- integral part of politics and their communities. i spoke to a number of medical leaders this week who says

they're ours so holding out hope that there is power in shared numbers. every school district has teachers unions, they have teachers that are some of the most engaged in the community. you cannot find a congressional district that does not have a teacher in it. it remains to see what the ultimate impact of the case will be. that could be diminished -- there the at the table when it comes -- the teachers's seat at the table in the political committee could be diminished. host: thank you all for joining us. when i see something like that, i can only see it from the her perspective. i had a lot of people pray for me similarly. as a christian, i believe that christianity has a very long tradition of divine healing.

i certainly do not think it is not possible for god to heal people. announcer: tonight on q&a, duke divinity cool professor and prosperity scholar discusses how memoir ""everything happens for a reason and other lies." in which she reflects on being diagnosed with each for: cancer at the age of 35. >> it is gone, right? will then, that is real. >> you can see how quickly he , and from praying for her then his confidence in himself as a that vehicle. and the idea that because she did not have pain in that moment, that she is definitely healed. this very dramatic approach to faith healing is one that i often found to be somewhat manipulative. announcer: tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on the span's q&a. ♪