Visiting South Florida, nationwide academics’ union head says schooling over-politicized – WPLG Native 10

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – American Federation of Lecturers President Randi Weingarten visited South Florida Wednesday to denounce what she referred to as an “assault on public schooling” by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

At Dillard Excessive College in Fort Lauderdale, one of many faculties she visited throughout her journey, Weingarten touted the varsity’s robotics program.

“We’re seeing applications that work for teenagers,” Weingarten mentioned. “What we have to do is raise all children up. We don’t should be dividing.”

That’s what she accuses the governor of doing, saying it’s all pushed by political ambitions and tradition wars. She pointed to the Miami-Dade College Board’s recent vote against recognizing LGBTQ History Month.

“The Miami-Dade board is now scared and in order that’s why they did what they did,” Weingarten mentioned.

It was a transfer even some faculty board members say was pushed by the Parental Rights in Schooling regulation, recognized by critics because the “Don’t Say Homosexual” invoice.

However the governor says it’s all in regards to the rights of fogeys, to allow them to resolve what their kids be taught.

“They’re defunding the general public faculties,” Weingarten mentioned. “They’re making it tougher to show trustworthy historical past, voting rights, the New Deal.”

Union leaders say new legal guidelines have created an atmosphere the place individuals don’t wish to be academics, partly, they are saying, why districts are having a tough time recruiting.

“We see worry,” Broward Lecturers Union President Anna Fusco mentioned.

Worry and the lack of native management, they mentioned. Particularly in Broward, the place the governor has now appointed the majority of the county’s faculty board following his suspension of elected officers after a scathing grand jury report that accused them of incompetence and neglect of responsibility.

“He changed them with 4 Republican males who might by no means get elected in a county like Broward County,” Antonio White, the primary vp of United Lecturers of Dade, mentioned.