Randi Weingarten

As a former teacher and someone who has devoted her entire career to children and public schools, I understand the pain and frustration of parents who feel their children are not receiving the education they deserve.

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.

There is a recognition that Second Amendment rights, like First Amendment and other rights, come with responsibilities and limitations. There is no reason both sides of the gun debate can't support policies that both protect the right to legally own guns for sport and safety, and reduce the likelihood of mass fatalities.

The American Federation of Teachers has a long track record of working with administrators, parents, and communities to provide real help to struggling students and low-performing schools. We've learned that intensive interventions, proven programs, and adequate resources can transform students' lives and their schools.

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.

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.

We know that reading to children is a crucial step. From the beginning, babies who are read to are exposed to the cadence of language, and school-age children who read at home for 15 minutes a day are exposed to millions of words.

Ensuring that we help prepare all kids for life, college, and work in our knowledge-based economy will require a collaborative, sustained effort from all stakeholders - from the president and the secretary of education on down to states, school districts, principals, teachers, parents, and community members.

If we want to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, it starts with a fair wage, adequate working conditions, and the resources and support to succeed. Remember: teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions.

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.

Where educators are raising and combining their voices, the seeds of positive change have emerged. Collective voice, exercised through the union, is power - the power to drive real change for our kids, families and communities.

Kids need time for problem solving, critical thinking, applying knowledge through project-based instruction, working in teams, falling down and getting right back up to figure out what they didn't understand and why.

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.

There's no silver bullet when it comes to helping all children achieve. Great public schools are our best shot.

Giving children a fair chance to achieve their dreams and reach their potential is everyone's responsibility.

While books expand horizons by exposing us to worlds outside our own, children also need to see themselves, their experiences and their cultures reflected in books they read. Unfortunately, for too many children, this is not the norm.

For me, the labor movement and public education are linked as the essential building blocks to a strong middle class and a path to the American dream. It's why I went to Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergrad and then to law school.

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

High-quality alternative educational settings should be available when students violate codes of conduct and need to be removed from the classroom while still maintaining access to instruction. And there must be social, health and psychological services to address students' needs.

It's hard work to ensure that all schools are safe and welcoming places for all children. It means changing policies, practices and cultures; providing school support personnel; and funding programs like restorative justice - not simply resorting to excessive and often discriminatory discipline.

I can't imagine my life without books. My father was an electrical engineer, and my mother was a public school teacher. Books were an integral part of my childhood.

We have guidance counselors that have caseloads of 500 to 600 children. We don't have enough to help the children.

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.

Throughout my career as a lawyer, teacher and labor leader, books have remained my constant companion - stuffed into a briefcase, overflowing on my bedside table, stacked on my desk at work. Books have carried me to distant worlds, opened new doors and made me feel empathy, compassion, anger, fear, joy, acceptance - and everything in between.

Many schools desperately need caring professionals like guidance counselors and social workers to ensure students' emotional, social and educational needs are met. But proposals to arm teachers are irresponsible and dangerous. The role of educators is to teach and nurture our children, not to be armed guards.

The public education landscape is enriched by having many options - neighborhood public schools, magnet schools, community schools, schools that focus on career and technical education, and even charter schools.

There are essential elements for our public schools to fully develop the potential of both students and educators. They should be centers of community, where students, families and educators work together to support student success. They should foster collaboration.

As a woman, as a Jew, as a lesbian, as a labor leader in a time of great anti-union animus, I know that other people project their biases on me. But it is nothing like the experience of our African-American brothers and sisters, especially black and brown men and boys.

Public schooling fosters our common identity as Americans sharing a land of diversity. It promotes the American ideal of opportunity for all, not just some. It cultivates the civic values of respecting individuals as well as collective responsibility.

When student performance shows increases on test scores, that improvement is not associated with an increase in 'fluid intelligence' - that is, using logical thinking and problem solving in novel situations, rather than recalling previously learned facts and skills.

Teaching is a profession in which capacity building should occur at every stage of the career - novices working with accomplished colleagues, skillful teachers sharing their craft, and opportunities for teacher leadership.

For working people and union members, Labor Day stands for something special and profound. It's a day to honor the deep commitment each of us has to serve the children we teach, the families we heal, and the communities we love.

Merit pay has failed repeatedly, and it's no surprise. When you base teacher pay on standardized test scores, you won't improve education; you just promote the high-stakes testing craze that's led parents, students and educators to shout 'Enough!' all across the country.

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

Education - much like law or medicine - should be a profession governed by professionals. Unfortunately, too many policies, even those that are well-intentioned, come from the top, leaving out those closest to the classroom, who have the greatest insight into how to provide a high-quality education for all students.

You can't be against bullying without actually doing something about it.

Rather than support workers at home or investments in public schools, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan support the Bush-era tax cuts for the very wealthy. They want to hand over our schools to private corporations.

Good tests can help teachers determine how their students are performing and identify the areas in which their students need assistance. Like an X-ray, however, tests can diagnose, but they cannot cure.

Due process gives teachers the latitude to use their professional judgment in their classrooms, to advocate for their students, and to not fear retribution for speaking the truth or teaching controversial subjects like evolution. As political winds shift in school districts, due process also wards off patronage or nepotism.

Mike Bloomberg may be a Republican these days. But he has been a Democrat for most of his adult life.

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.

Sure, just like there are bad lawyers, bad doctors and bad politicians, there are people who aren't cut out to be teachers. But by and large, the people who are called to be teachers are passionate about the profession.

Learning should be engaging. Testing should not be the be all and end all. All students should have a broad curriculum that includes the arts and enrichment. Students should have opportunities to work in teams and engage in project-based learning. And student and family well-being should be front and center.

The last thing we need is efforts by some politicians and the NRA to arm educators and allow more guns in our schools.

I've worked in public education for 30 years - as a teacher, a lawyer and union leader. I've visited hundreds of schools and districts. I've seen leaders from the classroom to the national stage who have been willing to set aside their differences and do the hard work that's necessary to create real, enduring change.

As we embark on something as ambitious as the Common Core, educators must be able to teach to the standards with the necessary support and collaboration and without the sense that there will be dire consequences if students, schools and their tests don't make the grade.

I've heard from pre-K and kindergarten teachers alike that the Common Core is inappropriately pushing written literacy standards when the focus should be on the development of oral literacy skills. And that's actually delaying the development of literacy.

Schools should be places of learning and joy, not testing and agita.

America always pivots between collective responsibility and the idea that the individual can pull himself up by his bootstraps.

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.

Real parent engagement means establishing meaningful ways for parents to be partners in their children's public education from the beginning - not just when a school is failing. The goal should be to never let a school get to that point.

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