Welcome to the report card with Nat Malchus, the Education Policy podcast from the American Enterprise Institute.

On the right, teachers unions are often treated as the bogeyman, and no one today

is more synonymous with teachers' unions than Randy Weingarten. Indeed, in 2022,

former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Weingarten the most dangerous person in the world. But who is Randy Weingarten?

What does she do on a day-to-day basis? How much power does she actually have? What are her views

on topics such as pensions, curriculum, and teacher autonomy? And is she actually the most dangerous

person in the world? To find out,

I invited Randy Weingarten to our recording studio for a wide-ranging conversation on many of the

biggest topics in American education. Randy Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of

Teachers and the author of a new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers,

Public Education and the Future of Democracy. Also, just a quick note for our listeners,

although Randy Weingarten and I certainly have different perspectives on many issues.

I didn't invite her onto the podcast to debate or to challenge her. Rather, as is the case with every guest who comes on the report card, I invited Randy on to hear her perspective.

On the report card, we trust our audience to make their own judgments.

So without further ado, Randy Weingarten, welcome to the report card.

Well, I'm glad to be here with you, Nat.

All right.

So, Randy, you are many things to many people, but in practical terms, you're the president of the American Federation of Teachers, a position you've held since 2008.

So I have a simple question to start with.

What does the president of the AFT do? Maybe it's even better to say what,

you know, I do so much that the question really becomes, what don't I do? In real terms,

what I do is I am the head of a 1.8 million member organization. It's a member association. It's a union.

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