AFT’s Weingarten on Trump’s Illegal Attack on Poor Kids

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the Trump administration released a new memo threatening to withdraw billions of dollars in Title I support for low-income students if school districts fail to enact his divisive policy agenda:

“In the middle of a school year, the president is trying to bully the very same school districts that he insisted, just a few weeks ago, should be in charge of education. He’s wielding a cudgel of billions in federal aid to tens of millions of children, of all races and ethnicities, to force educators to kowtow to his politics and ideology.

“If a school’s reading specialist is using a book the president doesn’t like, is the federal government going to deny the district funding for after-school care? If a school is celebrating Jewish Heritage Month or Juneteenth, does it lose tutoring support? If an educator is teaching about Jim Crow, is summer school now in jeopardy?

“The president’s approach is rich in irony. On the one hand, the administration wants to abolish the Education Department and dismantle its role in schools, and on the other, it wants to dictate curriculum in minute detail and act as a de facto HR director.

“This is a power grab and a money grab—and it’s also blatantly unlawful. We know the administration wants to divert federal education funds into block grants, vouchers or tax cuts, but it’s simply not legal; only Congress can do that. Further, federal statute explicitly prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach, and funds cannot be withheld on the basis of Title VI Civil Rights Act claims without due process.

“The authority cited in the memo, SFFA v. Harvard, was about higher education, not K-12 schools. It’s why we sued the administration over its previous ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, and why this memo just reinforces our concern that political ideology, not kids’ learning, is their priority.

“The president should be strengthening public education, not destroying it. He should be helping the most vulnerable kids, not hurting them. This destructive gambit just hurts children. It strips them of instruction in the middle of their school year. It’s callous, cruel, counterproductive and simply won’t stand, in both the classroom, the court of law and the court of public opinion.”