Once Champions of Fairness and Learning
For decades, America’s teacher unions were the pride of the labor movement, organizations that fought for better classrooms, fair pay, and honest education. Jewish immigrants and civic-minded reformers built these unions on ideals of equality and opportunity. No one embodied that vision better than Albert Shanker, founder of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and later president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Shanker saw teaching as a public trust. He defended rigorous academics, opposed indoctrination, and believed unions should elevate both teachers and students. When anti-Semitic hostility erupted during the 1968 Ocean Hill–Brownsville school crisis, Shanker took a stand for Jewish teachers who were being targeted and dismissed. He insisted that union solidarity meant everyone, not just those aligned with one ideology. His courage made enemies, but it preserved the principle that education must never bow to political extremism.
Under Shanker, the AFT defended Israel’s right to exist, supported civil rights, and rejected anti-Semitism in all forms. His vision was pluralistic: classrooms were to be places of open inquiry, not propaganda. That moral clarity built public trust in teacher unions as a force for fairness and truth.
The Slow Turn Toward Ideology
In the decades after Shanker’s death, the movement he helped build began to change. A new generation of activists brought radical identity politics and anti-Western narratives into the union mainstream. Israel, once respected as a democratic ally, was recast as a “settler-colonialist” villain. Union meetings that once focused on debating curriculum standards began passing resolutions on foreign policy.
This ideological drift did not happen overnight. But by the 2010s, it was unmistakable. National Education Association (NEA) conventions became battlegrounds for activists demanding boycotts, divestments, and sanctions against Israel. The AFT, too, saw internal campaigns to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, one of America’s oldest anti-hate organizations.
Teachers who objected often faced intimidation. Some Jewish educators were shouted down in meetings; others watched Holocaust-education programs quietly dropped in favor of “decolonization” lessons that portrayed Jews as oppressors. The result was a growing chill inside unions that once prided themselves on inclusion.
The Execrable Leadership of Randi Weingarten
Nowhere is this transformation clearer than under Randi Weingarten, a lesbian Jew, who has led the AFT since 2008. Her tenure has been a case study in how political activism can consume an institution built for education. Weingarten has turned the union into a national political machine, one that weighs in on nearly every controversy except the one that matters most: restoring learning and safety in America’s classrooms.
Under her direction, the AFT has endorsed highly politicized curricula, joined coalitions that accuse Israel of genocide, and issued statements that echo the rhetoric of far-left protest movements. After the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were brutally tortured and murdered, Weingarten’s response was widely condemned as tepid and evasive. Many Jewish members felt abandoned.
She betrayed the union’s original mission. Instead of defending teachers from outside ideology, she has invited ideology in, allowing the classroom to become a stage for political theater. The AFT’s obsession with progressive communist democrat social-justice posturing has crowded out its traditional focus on literacy, civics, and professional standards.
What makes Weingarten’s leadership truly execrable is the moral inversion it represents. Where Shanker built bridges between labor, learning, and civic responsibility, Weingarten has built barricades, dividing educators along political and cultural lines. Where Shanker defended Jewish teachers from bigotry, Weingarten’s administration tolerates activists who harass or silence them. The difference is not merely generational; it is philosophical. Shanker fought for education as enlightenment. Weingarten treats it as a weapon in ideological war.
The Classroom Consequences
This politicization is not confined to union halls. Across the country, K–12 students are now exposed to one-sided “liberated” curricula that frame Israel as an occupying power and erase centuries of Jewish history. School walkouts and “teach-ins” organized under union banners have used slogans that implicitly call for Israel’s destruction. Teachers who resist these narratives risk professional isolation.
Such activism poisons the educational environment. Jewish students find themselves singled out or afraid to speak. Parents find that lessons once focused on world history have evolved into moral lectures targeting a single nation. The very institutions meant to protect diversity of thought are instead enforcing conformity of ideology.
How Far the Union Has Fallen
Albert Shanker viewed teacher unions as guardians of the middle class, protectors of both educators and the democratic society they serve. His successors have allowed that legacy to decay into factionalism and resentment. The same unions that once fought prejudice now enable it under the guise of “progressive” politics. The same organizations that once defended academic freedom now police thought in the classroom.
The shift has real costs. Public confidence in schools has plummeted. Enrollment in education programs is shrinking. Parents increasingly see unions not as allies but as political bullies. When union leadership embraces fringe ideology, it weakens every teacher who entered the profession to help children, not indoctrinate them.
The Road Back: Accountability and Reform
Restoring the moral center of America’s teacher unions will require courage equal to Shanker’s. Policymakers should demand transparency from national unions that receive public funds or tax exemptions. State legislatures can ensure that classroom materials remain balanced and fact-based. Teachers themselves must reclaim their profession, refusing to let partisan agendas define their mission.
Reform does not mean silencing dissent; it means protecting genuine diversity of thought. It means ensuring that Jewish teachers, and all teachers, can work without fear of harassment or ideological coercion. It means remembering that education is not activism; it is the disciplined pursuit of truth.
Bottom Line: Reclaiming Shanker’s Legacy
The journey from Albert Shanker to Randi Weingarten is the story of a movement that lost its compass. Once guided by fairness, pluralism, and respect for learning, America’s teacher unions now teeter between activism and intolerance. The rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric within their ranks is not just a betrayal of Jewish members; it is a betrayal of education itself.
If unions wish to survive as credible advocates for teachers and students, they must rediscover Shanker’s moral clarity. They must stand for learning over ideology, unity over division, and truth over propaganda. Only then can America’s classrooms again become places of inquiry, not indoctrination, and its unions once more champions of knowledge rather than instruments of political extremism.
With all of today’s technical miracles, I find it hard to believe that we still can’t reliably teach kids how to read, write, and do basic math, despite having more than ten years to do it. Of course, the reason lies with the unions.
We are so screwed.
— Steve
