Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a fiery speech to the National Education Association (NEA) on Wednesday, rallying the teachers union with a series of dire warnings about the potential impact of former President Donald Trump’s policies on the future of public education.
Addressing the union’s annual conference in Chicago, Harris highlighted Trump’s attempts to “undermine public education” by pushing for school choice programs and defunding public schools. She accused him of “attacking the very core of our democratic values” by seeking to control what children learn in classrooms.
“We saw what happened when Donald Trump was in the White House,” Harris said. “We saw an attack on teachers, an attack on public schools, an attack on the very idea of public education.”
Harris emphasized the importance of teachers as vital figures in American society, highlighting their role in educating future generations and shaping the country’s future. She called on teachers to remain vigilant against threats to public education and to continue fighting for their students and their profession.
The speech comes at a time when public education is facing a number of challenges, including funding cuts, teacher shortages, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The NEA, the nation’s largest labor union, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s education policies and has pledged to continue fighting for the rights of teachers and students.
Harris’s speech was met with enthusiastic applause from the assembled teachers and union leaders. It served as a reminder of the stakes involved in the ongoing battle over the future of public education, and it energized teachers to remain engaged in the fight for their profession and their students.
