Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), joined Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson for a live interview in which the two discussed issues impacting public education ahead of the new school year. They covered:
How teachers and parents are being financially squeezed by rising gas, grocery, and housing costs
The fallout from cuts to Medicaid and food stamps under the Trump administration
The tripling of student loan payments after Trump ended Biden’s SAVE repayment plan
Whether a future Democratic administration should cancel federal student debt
Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s praise for AI-taught “Alpha Schools”
How screens and generative AI harm children’s ability to learn
Whether teachers might strike again, as they did during the first Trump administration
How teachers in deep-red, right-to-work states can start organizing unions
Raw America is only able to bring you live interviews like these with people shaping the news thanks to the support of our paying subscribers. Cable networks and newspapers compromised by billionaire owners connected to the Trump regime will never be able to bring you the inside knowledge that those in power want to keep hidden. We don’t answer to them. We only answer to you. And that won’t change as long as we’re in business.
But right now, we’re behind on our fundraising goals and are counting on free readers like you to make today the day you upgrade to a paying membership. Every dollar of every subscription goes directly toward funding our reporters on the ground, and making interviews like this one possible. Take a moment and subscribe so we can keep bringing you the straight truth free from billionaire influence.
Teachers and Parents Are ‘Not Making It’ Financially
Gibson opened by asking Weingarten what AFT was hearing from its members about growing financial stress as the 2026-2027 school year approaches. Weingarten said a survey of 7,500 AFT members earlier this year found that three-quarters of them living paycheck to paycheck, with half of the union’s members counted among low-wage workers as adjunct faculty and paraprofessionals.
“You need seventy-five, $80,000 to live in a city these days,” Weingarten said, arguing that even with collective bargaining raises of three or four percent annually, many members can’t keep up with rising housing, gas, and grocery costs. She called for things like increasing the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour (something Gibson also called for in a 2021 Barron’s op-ed) and a new federal tax cut for workers, saying working-class people simply need “cash.”
Weingarten connected the ongoing affordability crisis directly to President Donald Trump and Republicans’ so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) and three compounding effects: roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts shutting down rural hospitals, changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) that she said stripped away support for healthier school meals, and new tariffs pushing costs of consumer goods even higher.
“People are one illness away from bankruptcy,” she said of the hospital closures.
Student Loan Payments Have Tripled for Many Borrowers
Much of the conversation between Gibson and Weingarten centered on new federal student loan repayment terms outlined in the OBBBA. Weingarten said the elimination of former President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan has resulted in some of her union’s members paying roughly $440 a month, up from what had been closer to a more manageable cost of $60 or $100.
Weingarten noted that more than 3.6 million borrowers have defaulted since the changes took effect — a rate she described as one borrower defaulting every nine seconds — while total student debt has nearly tripled across 44 million young borrowers. She also argued the savings from eliminating income-driven repayment plans were redirected toward other priorities.
“Why? Because it was — it was used, all those repayment plans, all the saved interest, was used for tax cuts for billionaires,” Weingarten said.
Gibson pressed Weingarten on whether piling new costs onto borrowers made political sense for Republicans hoping to hold their congressional majorities this November. Weingarten proposed that Republicans’ strategy instead relies on manufacturing a cultural divide between working-class Americans who choose to attend college versus those who don’t.
“What they’re doing is they’re basically hammering at colleges and making it less affordable, and suggesting that there is an elitism to the people who are trying to go to college,” she said, adding that the goal is to conceal budget cuts in order “to pay for tax cuts for the rich.”
Should a Future Democratic President Cancel Federal Student Loan Debt?
Gibson proposed that the Biden administration had perhaps missed a chance to broadly discharge most federal student debt. He noted that the Higher Education Act of 1965 allows the secretary of education to have broad leeway over federal student loans, and noted that then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona did not exercise that authority under Biden’s presidency. He then asked whether a future Democratic administration should pursue full cancellation.
Weingarten stopped short of endorsing the discharging of all federal student debt, but agreed the current system is “completely unaffordable” and pointed to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (in which student loans for graduates working in the public sector or nonprofit organizations can be forgiven after 10 years) as a template for capping how much borrowers ultimately have to repay.
“We should never be in a situation where people think the first generation going to college is elite. It’s opportunity,” she said, adding that Democrats “lost the narrative” on affordability by acting too slowly and communicating poorly.
Linda McMahon’s Endorsement of AI to Replace Teachers and How AI Harms Students
Turning to education policy, Gibson pointed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s praise for the “Alpha School” in Austin, Texas, which uses AI to provide instruction to students while human staff serve as “guides” rather than teachers. Weingarten didn’t hold back in her criticism of both McMahon and the idea that AI could replace human teachers.
“Linda McMahon may be the only living human being that thinks that teachers are replaceable by humanoids,” Weingarten said, noting that even Silicon Valley executives opt to send their kids to schools that don’t allow personal electronic devices.
Weingarten also questioned the transparency of Alpha Schools, telling Gibson that the facilities have so far declined to let AFT observe how their AI provides instruction to students.
“They won’t let us visit. So what does that tell you?” she said.
Weingarten went on to describe a policy platform she laid out in a May speech dubbed “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands On.” Weingarten explained that research shows excessive screen time can significantly impact children’s cognition, attention spans and imagination during their critical developmental years between the ages of zero and six. She said AFT now supports banning all screens for students until after second grade, along with banning all student-facing AI in elementary schools. She said that can allow children to have the space to build their foundational critical thinking skills before they’re introduced to technology.
Gibson referenced a 2025 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finding that adults aged 18 to 39 who used ChatGPT to write essays showed reduced brain function compared to those who didn’t. Weingarten agreed there’s a meaningful difference between assistive AI tools and generative AI that’s often used as a shortcut around actual learning, arguing that AI is only useful to someone who already understands the material.
“There’s a really important place for critical thinking, for struggling to learn, for actually connecting the dots,” Weingarten said.
Could Teachers Strike Again Soon?
Gibson then asked Weingarten whether AFT members might stage massive strikes similar to the wave of red-state teacher walkouts during the first Trump administration in states like Oklahoma and West Virginia. Weingarten urged that any action should be organized and backed by legal infrastructure.
Weingarten said that in West Virginia and Oklahoma, teacher strikes won short-term gains that were ultimately rolled back because those teachers lacked collective bargaining protections in their respective states. She then contrasted those efforts with a recent teacher strike in San Francisco that led to a concrete victory by securing premium-free healthcare for union member households.
“We are the fastest growing union in the United States of America,” Weingarten said, pointing to 179 newly organized units nationwide.
How Teachers in Deep-Red States Can Organize Their Own Unions
Gibson concluded by asking Weingarten what advice she would give teachers in deep-red states with anti-union right-to-work laws who are trying to organize their own unions. She encouraged teachers to start small, beginning with just a handful of committed colleagues, and to lean on the First Amendment to defend their right of association.
Weingarten pointed to an AFT lawsuit defending Texas teachers who nearly lost their jobs over private comments made after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and a recent successful union election among librarians in Columbus, Ohio, where 80 percent of those present voted to unionize.
“If you get a bunch of people to be willing to act together, work together, be together, vote together, do that — that is the power of the people,” Weingarten said. “And the power of the people, still in a democracy, if we keep our democracy, still beats the power of privilege and the power of money.”
Help Us Keep Bringing You Interviews Like These
Raw America is proud to bring you live interviews with newsmakers like Randi Weingarten — along with our twice-daily newsletters and coverage from both the Capitol and the White House — while remaining fully independent of a billionaire backer and a corporate parent. Media outlets captured by MAGA oligarchs can’t be counted on to give you the full picture, because those outlets’ employees know at any moment they could be fired for stepping out of line.
Raw America doesn’t have that problem, because we only answer to readers like you. But quality journalism requires resources, and we can’t do any of this without enough free subscribers deciding that independent media is worth financially supporting. If you found this interview valuable, become a paying subscriber right now and help keep this work going.
