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“Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?” The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call.” At least, that’s what Mike Pompeo, the former CIA Director and former US Secretary of State, told a reporter in 2022.

Three years later, Randi Weingarten’s rebuttal takes the form of a book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy, in which the long-time President of the American Federation of Teachers, representing nearly 2 million members, mounts a defense of democracy, teachers, and our public schools, arguing that “Public schools are laboratories of civil society and, at their best, embody the multifaith, multiracial coexistence that is our nation’s best future…Fascists fear teachers because education is essential to democracy.”

At its core are conjoined and fundamental questions I think we took for granted, until recently, as settled consensus in the United States of America: What is democracy? What is the role of public schools in a pluralistic democratic nation, and why are both worth keeping?

To help us answer these questions and understand why fascists fear teachers is none other than AFT President, Randi Weingarten.

Why Fascists Fear Teachers (AFT website)