Randi Weingarten facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Randi Weingarten
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Weingarten in 2020
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| President of the American Federation of Teachers | |
| Assumed office July 14, 2008 |
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| Preceded by | Edward J. McElroy |
| President of the United Federation of Teachers | |
| In office 1998–2008 |
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| Preceded by | Sandra Feldman |
| Succeeded by | Michael Mulgrew |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 18, 1957 New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse |
Sharon Kleinbaum
(m. 2018) |
| Education | Cornell University (BS) Yeshiva University (JD) |
Rhonda "Randi" Weingarten (born December 18, 1957) is an American leader who works with labor unions, a lawyer, and an educator. She has been the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) since 2008. She is also a member of the AFL-CIO, which is a large group of unions. Before this, she was the president of the United Federation of Teachers.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Randi Weingarten was born in 1957 in New York City. Her father was an engineer, and her mother was a teacher. Randi grew up in Rockland County, New York, and went to Clarkstown High School North.
Her interest in helping workers and speaking up for causes started when she was young. When Randi was in high school, her mother's union went on strike for seven weeks. A strike is when workers stop working to demand better pay or conditions. Even though her mother could have lost her job, she was only fined. Later, the school board cut money from the budget. Randi and other students convinced the board to survey how the cuts would affect things. This survey helped change some board members' minds, and they brought the money back.
From 1979 to 1980, Randi worked for the Labor Committee of the New York State Senate. She earned a degree in labor relations from Cornell University in 1980. She then got her law degree from Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in 1983.
Legal and Teaching Career
After law school, Randi worked as a lawyer from 1983 to 1986. She helped the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) with important cases. In 1986, she became a lawyer for Sandra Feldman, who was the president of the UFT at the time. Randi handled big problems for the union and led lawsuits against New York City to get more money and improve safety for schools. By the early 1990s, she was the main person negotiating contracts for the UFT.
From 1991 to 1997, Randi taught at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn. She taught classes like Law and U.S. History. She also helped coach the school's team for a civics competition in 1995. Her team won the New York State championship and placed fourth nationally.
Leading the United Federation of Teachers
In 1997, Randi was elected the UFT's treasurer. A year later, she became the president of the union when Sandra Feldman became president of the national American Federation of Teachers. Randi was also elected a Vice President of the AFT that same year.
Randi was re-elected as UFT president many times with strong support. She won her first full three-year term in 2001 and her fourth term in 2007. She stepped down from her role as UFT president on July 31, 2009.
Working for Better Contracts
As UFT president, Randi Weingarten worked hard to get good contracts for teachers. These contracts set rules for pay, working hours, and other important things.
- First Contract (2000-2001): Her first contract talks started in 2000. It was a tough negotiation, and a state mediator had to help. Randi even prepared the union for a possible strike. In the end, a new agreement was reached in June 2001. It raised wages for teachers and made the work week a bit longer.
- Second Contract (2003-2005): The next contract talks were also difficult. The city suggested new ideas like paying teachers based on how well students performed. Randi rejected these ideas at first. The union held protests and rallies. Finally, in October 2005, a new contract was agreed upon. It gave teachers a good wage increase and made some small changes to the workday.
- Third Contract (2006): In 2006, Randi helped reach another agreement that increased teacher pay. This deal helped bring city teacher salaries closer to those in the suburbs.
Randi also worked on agreements for teacher pensions, which are like savings for retirement. These agreements aimed to help teachers retire at age 55 after 25 years of service.
Growing the Union
Under Randi's leadership, the UFT grew. It represents teachers, school support staff, and other professionals like school nurses in New York City schools.
The UFT also has a division for registered nurses in hospitals and home health agencies. This part of the union also grew.
One of Randi's biggest successes was organizing childcare providers in New York City. This effort, from 2005 to 2007, added 28,000 workers to the union. It was the largest successful union campaign in the city since the UFT itself was formed in 1960.
Leading the American Federation of Teachers
On July 14, 2008, Randi Weingarten was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). She was the first openly gay person to lead a national American labor union. In her first year, she worked to get money to support schools during tough economic times. She also started an AFT Innovation Fund to help teachers and their union come up with new ideas for education.
Randi's Views on Education
Randi Weingarten believes in a "bottom-up" approach to education reform. This means that teachers' ideas and needs should be heard and included when making changes to schools. She has often spoken out against state and federal education plans that don't involve teachers enough.
Improving Schools
The AFT, led by Randi, has looked closely at how big organizations try to influence education. She believes that neighborhood public schools and charter schools can work together. She sees charter schools as places for new ideas that can help all schools. However, she does not support ideas that try to replace public schools with charter schools. She has also said that charter schools can sometimes take money away from regular school districts.
Standardized Tests
Randi thinks that focusing too much on tests is a problem in education. She believes standardized tests can be one tool to see how students are doing, but they shouldn't be the only thing. She has criticized laws that make tests too important, saying they can make schools focus on tests instead of on the children themselves.
The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) was passed with the AFT's support. This law changed how teachers are evaluated, so it's not just based on student test scores. Randi praised this law for giving teachers more freedom to try new ways of teaching and help students think critically.
Teacher Training and Support
Randi believes that too much focus on testing and not enough resources make it hard to find and keep good teachers. She says teachers need more support, time, and respect to do their jobs well.
She has suggested creating a special test for new teachers, similar to the test lawyers take. She thinks this would help prepare teachers better and reduce the number of new teachers who leave the profession early.
Poverty and Community Schools
Randi and the AFT have highlighted how money problems in communities can hurt public schools. Schools often rely on local taxes, so poorer areas might have less money for schools.
She believes that schools should focus on helping students with their basic needs, like food and safety, because these issues can stop students from learning. The AFT supports "community schools," which are schools that also offer services like job help for parents or housing advice for families. These schools aim to support the whole community, not just academics.
The AFT has helped create community schools in many cities and even started a project in West Virginia to help a poor county by improving education and addressing poverty.
Teacher Job Protection
Randi Weingarten has defended job protections for teachers, often called "tenure." She argues that removing these protections would hurt the quality of teaching. She says that states with the best academic results often have strong protections for teachers. She sees tenure as ensuring fairness and a proper process before a teacher can be fired, not as a "job for life."
She has worked to update how tenure works in some states. For example, she proposed a plan where teachers who are not doing well would get a year to improve before facing possible dismissal.
Pensions and Retirement
Under Randi's leadership, the AFT has fought to protect teachers' retirement savings plans, called pensions. She argues against changing these plans to types that put more risk on individual teachers. She believes that teachers should have a secure retirement.
The AFT has also looked into how some investment funds manage teacher pensions. They have criticized some of these funds for not getting good returns or for supporting groups that want to change pensions in ways that might hurt teachers.
Political Involvement
Randi Weingarten is a member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which is a main group for the Democratic Party. She has been an important supporter of various political figures. For example, she supported Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primary.
In 2020, Randi Weingarten was considered as a possible candidate for Secretary of Education in the Biden administration. She also served as an elector for New York in the 2020 United States presidential election.
She is also on the board of directors for Voters of Tomorrow, a group that encourages young people from Generation Z to get involved in politics.
Family Life
Randi Weingarten is married to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. They married on March 25, 2018. She has said that she is a mother through her marriage.
See also
- American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
- LGBT culture in New York City
- LGBT people from New York City
- NYC Pride March
