Quotes from Randi Weingarten

When police or security personnel work in schools, they should follow the community policing model that integrates officers into school life, not just involve them when trouble arises.

Teachers need time to engage with colleagues - whether shadowing, mentoring, co-teaching or conferring. They need a voice in school decisions and to be trusted as professionals.

My gut reaction [on Betsy DeVos] was, oh, my God. We are now back into the education wars.

Appropriate assessments are a crucial part of effectively educating students. But they only measure a narrow segment of what kids need to learn.

Beginning with the No Child Left Behind law and continuing today with Race to the Top, the federal emphasis on standardized assessments has become so excessive that it has modified state and district behavior in troubling ways.

I've made a lifetime commitment to the union movement and to public education.

We know taking care of an infant isn't just women's work - so why should maternity leave be the norm when paternity leave is the exception? There's no question that taking care of and bonding with a new baby is just as important and meaningful for dads as it is for moms.

I remember the first day of school my first year in the classroom. My stomach churned with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Could I do the job? Could I connect with the kids? Will there be the chemistry to build relationships and get the job done, or will I totally flop?

Standardized testing is at cross purposes with many of the most important purposes of public education. It doesn't measure big-picture learning, critical thinking, perseverance, problem solving, creativity or curiosity, yet those are the qualities great teaching brings out in a student.

When I taught, the way in which we got evaluated is what I used to call the drive-by evaluation. Somebody would come in for 20 minutes with a checklist, and that would be your evaluation. So it was clearly a snapshot.

A high-quality public education can build much-needed skills and knowledge. It can help children reach their God-given potential. It can stabilize communities and democracies. It can strengthen economies. It can combat the kind of fear and despair that evolves into hatred.

We all have a stake in ensuring that all students have the schools they deserve and that communities are leading this effort, not being left behind. To do that, we must challenge unchecked charter expansion and the forces driving it.

I'm such a stereotypical female learner in that I love social studies and love literature, and I always struggled with math and science.

A rich, robust, well-resourced public education is one of the best routes out of poverty and a pathway to prosperity.