{"id":35634,"date":"2025-03-10T22:18:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T22:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/randi-weingarten-says-quiet-part-out-loud-fears-ed-dept-closure-will-boost-school-choice-funds\/"},"modified":"2025-03-10T22:18:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T22:18:34","slug":"randi-weingarten-says-quiet-part-out-loud-fears-ed-dept-closure-will-boost-school-choice-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/randi-weingarten-says-quiet-part-out-loud-fears-ed-dept-closure-will-boost-school-choice-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Randi Weingarten says quiet part out loud: Fears Ed Dept closure will boost school choice funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten said during a recent podcast appearance that she is fearful President Donald Trump’s<\/a> plans to terminate the Department of Education will mean more funding for school choice vouchers, which she decried as a “tax credit” for wealthy families already sending their kids to private school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weingarten’s comments came during a podcast interview with Molly Jong-Fast, who spoke with her about the implications of Trump’s spending reforms, particularly his plan to terminate the Department of Education. Weingarten stated that cutting the department’s roughly $100 billion in funding will primarily benefit tax cuts for the wealthy or \u2013 “equally pernicious” \u2013 be redirected to states as “block grants.”<\/p>\n

“We know, for example, what Texas<\/a> would do,” Weingarten told Jong-Fast. “They’ll use it for vouchers. So they won’t give [federal funding] to the kids who have it now, they’ll just give it for vouchers.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

THREE MORE STATES JOIN TREND OF PASSING UNIVERSAL SCHOOL CHOICE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“And frankly, what we are seeing in all the programs now \u2013 in terms of vouchers \u2013 they don’t work for kids,” Weingarten continued. “They basically go right now \u2013 it becomes a tax credit for people who already are sending their kids to private schools. So it’s income redistribution.”<\/p>\n

Trump has not taken any formal action to dismantle the the department, but media reports<\/a> have signaled he is close to signing an executive order directing his education secretary, Linda McMahon, to begin the process. Last month, the president mused during a press conference from the Oval Office that the Education Department was “a big con job” that needed to be shut down “immediately.”<\/p>\n

Alongside his anticipated executive action to dismantle the department Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 29 to expand “educational freedom” for families through various school choice programs, including vouchers.<\/p>\n

“We’re fighting to protect our kids and protect that funding and not let Donald Trump or Elon Musk glom it off for tax cuts for billionaires or for block grants for vouchers,” Weingarten responded after Jong-Fast asked what she and her union, the American Federation of Teachers, was doing to combat Trump. Weingarten added that regardless of whether you are a Republican or Democrat, ensuring American families have the economic and educational opportunities to achieve the American Dream, should be a priority.<\/p>\n

TRUMP CUTS MORE THAN $400 MILLION IN GRANTS TO COLUMBIA OVER ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS, POTENTIALLY MORE TO COME<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“We all have to do a lot more to help make sure that families in America have what they need for a quality of life, for entry into the middle class,” Weingarten said.<\/p>\n

However, while Weingarten may be of the belief that school choice funding, in particular for vouchers, does not benefit the economic and educational opportunities<\/a> of Americans, others disagree with that notion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rachel Langan, a senior education policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, a public policy think-tank based in Pennsylvania, said “simply spending more money” is not an answer to the deficiencies within the U.S. education system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Pennsylvania already dedicates more than $37 billion to public schools, more than $22,000 per student. Yet, the latest\u00a0U.S. Department of Education<\/a> data\u00a0shows that 69% of Pennsylvania eighth-grade students aren\u2019t proficient at math, and an equal 69%\u00a0cannot read at grade level \u2013 despite a $4.1 billion increase in state education spending in the last four years,” Langan said in a statement following Trump’s executive order directing the federal government to prioritize school choice funding.<\/p>\n

\u00a0TRUMP ADMIN TACKLING BIDEN \u2018BACKLOG\u2019 OF CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM COMPLAINTS: \u2018IMMEDIATE PRIORITY\u2019<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Parents need more educational options, as evidenced by the continued waiting lists for charter schools and for the state\u2019s tax credit scholarship programs, which serve large numbers of low-income families zoned to attend low-achieving public schools.”<\/p>\n

“The time is now for school choice in every state,” the American Federation for Children, a nonprofit that advocates for school choice, added following Trump’s order. “For a generation, our nation\u2019s education system has been held hostage by bureaucrats and schooling unions who care only about preserving their own power, not the needs of American students.”<\/p>\n

Since Trump’s executive order boosting school choice funding, a handful of states have introduced legislation to make these programs more widely available. In total, 14 states have passed universal school choice bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital reached out to the American Federation of Teachers and Weingarten for comment, but did not hear back prior to publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten said during a recent podcast appearance that she is fearful President Donald Trump’s plans to terminate the Department of Education will mean more funding for school choice vouchers, which she decried as a “tax credit” for wealthy families already sending their kids to private school.\u00a0 Weingarten’s comments came during a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}