The 2024 presidential election defined this year’s American Federation of Teachers convention as a host of speakers, including Vice President Kamala Harris, called on the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union to rally behind Democrats in November.
The biennial convention, which took place here last week, was the 1.8 million-member union’s opportunity to bring 3,500 delegate teachers, paraprofessionals, university professors, nurses, and other federal and state employees together to vote on a slate of resolutions and elect their governing council.
But this year’s convention, which kicked off the day President Joe Biden announced the end of his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to replace him, focused primarily on the upcoming presidential election.
Here are some key events from the union’s five-day convention.
1. AFT becomes first union to endorse Harris for president
Just hours after Biden announced his departure from the race, the AFT executive council, which had already endorsed the president for reelection, met to determine next steps.
It was a “no-brainer” to shift the union’s endorsement to Harris, said AFT President Randi Weingarten, who previously pushed back against calls for Biden to step down after his poor debate performance in June launched a flurry of conversations about his age and ability to beat former President Donald Trump.
“If his vice president was willing to take up the baton and run with it, why wouldn’t you go with his vice president?” Weingarten said in an interview with Education Week. “Why would you go with somebody who wasn’t part of the administration?”
The convention’s delegates ultimately agreed with AFT leaders, voting unanimously to ratify the resolution for Harris’s endorsement on Monday, July 22.
Harris herself visited the convention on July 25, just days after becoming the likely Democratic nominee, denouncing “extremist” conservative efforts to cut education funding and restrict instruction on certain topics in schools. She spoke about her own 1st grade teacher and the role she played in shaping the vice president’s career.
“You see the potential of every child,” Harris said. “You foster it, you encourage it, and in so doing you shape the future of our nation, which is why I say we need you so desperately right now.”
2. AFT leaders paint Project 2025 as dangerous and extreme
The convention was as much an opportunity to endorse Harris as it was to denounce Trump, the GOP’s official platform, and Project 2025, an expansive conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation and a number of former Trump administration officials and Trump allies.
Project 2025, from which Trump has tried to distance himself, calls for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, phasing out Title I funding, expanding private school choice, and drastically scaling back the federal role in education. The GOP’s official platform, which party delegates approved at their July convention, also calls for the elimination of the Education Department and universal school choice.
In speeches and panels throughout the convention, Weingarten and other union leaders called Project 2025 “extremist,” taking issue with proposals in the 900-page document to rescind the congressional charter for the National Education Association and limit union bargaining power in the public sector as well as its education policy recommendations.
“We are truly at a crossroads in this moment,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was a teacher and union organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union before his election as mayor last year, said in a speech. “And while we base our movement in faith, our enemies base theirs in fear.”
The delegates at the convention passed two resolutions about Trump and Project 2025, saying the latter is a “road map for how a new, far-right, anti-democratic presidential administration can concentrate power and authority and override the checks and balances outlined in our Constitution without congressional approval.”
3. Delegates pass resolutions addressing AI and “over-testing”
In total, convention delegates passed 44 resolutions on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to better working conditions for paraprofessionals.
In a resolution addressing AI, the union called for “transparency, accountability, corporate responsibility, respect for intellectual property and creative outputs, and the protection of workers’ rights and privacy” to be considered as AI continues to develop and as it’s used in classrooms and other workplaces. It also states that the union will work with policymakers, technology developers, educational institutions, and other organizations to “establish clear, ethical guidelines and standards for the use of AI and social media within educational, governmental and healthcare settings.”
The resolution mirrors an AI policy statement the NEA approved at its representative assembly in Philadelphia earlier in July, which the union released alongside guidance for educators in using AI.
Another resolution called on policymakers and school leaders to “end over-testing in schools.” The issue was especially important to Weingarten, who said in her opening speech on July 22 that federal standardized testing doesn’t capture the full picture of student learning. Teachers’ unions have long criticized standardized tests and their expansion under federal policy.
In an interview, Weingarten said she’d like to see the federal government prioritize “experiential learning,” in which students are measured on their mastery of concepts and skills like critical thinking, over standardized test scores in evaluating schools’ and teachers’ performance.
“If it’s only about reading and math scores, then it means you’re not teaching kids context, you’re not teaching reason, you’re not teaching critical thinking, you’re not doing relationship-building,” Weingarten said.
The union also passed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Paraprofessionals and School Resource Personnel Bill of Rights, a U.S. Senate resolution introduced last November that calls for paraprofessionals and education support staff to “be compensated at a rate that is a livable, competitive wage,” and to have access to health care benefits and paid leave. The resolution, which wouldn’t have direct policy implications, has not made it through the Senate.
4. Delegates call for a ceasefire in Gaza after heated debate
One of the most hotly debated resolutions at the convention wasn’t directly related to education at all. For over an hour, delegates went back and forth on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and promoting a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Those who supported the resolution, including Weingarten, who joined delegates on the convention floor to speak in favor, said it was important for the union to advocate for peace in the Israel-Hamas war. Opponents argued the resolution should be amended to further denounce Israel’s role.
The proponents ultimately won out, but the debate showcased how the Israel-Hamas war has so commonly bred division.
Earlier this month, protestors gathered outside the NEA’s representative assembly to protest the Israel-Hamas war and its toll on Gaza. Protestors called on the NEA to adopt over a dozen new business items dedicated to the issue, but none were considered on the convention floor.
5. Weingarten wins re-election
Weingarten, who has served as AFT’s president since 2008 and has been a prominent voice—and Republican bogeyman—in national education debates, won reelection for another term, which lasts two years.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called her “the most dangerous person in the world” in 2022, and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives accused Weingarten during a hearing last year of conspiring with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep schools closed during the pandemic.
“There clearly is something about what we do that’s working, because we have been vilified—I have been vilified in particular—by the extreme right wing for the last two years relentlessly,” Weingarten said.
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