Becky Pringle, NEA President

When I sat down with Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, I expected a good conversation. What I didn’t expect was how much I would walk away inspired. President Pringle is fire and conviction wrapped in love for our kids. And she has no problem speaking the truth.

She reminded me why the fight over schools is really a fight over democracy itself:

Racial and social justice are at the core of education justice. So if we are gonna say “every student…” then we’ve got to unpack and address those racial inequities that are built in every social system in this country.

That’s not an abstract idea. That’s a challenge to all of us.

President Pringle didn’t stumble into this work. She told me a story about when her own son was in kindergarten, and the superintendent tried to pack 33 kids into his classroom. She stood up to it:

I stood up in front of Channel 6 and God and I said, no, that’s not gonna work. And I called out the superintendent, and that sort of started my journey.

That journey led her from one cafeteria protest to leading the largest labor union in the country. And she’s never lost sight of what’s at stake.

She remembered her first day as a teacher:

I didn’t have a clue… that every decision that was made about my kids and my classroom was made by somebody who was elected or appointed to office. So I began to understand that it was actually my moral obligation and my professional responsibility to be involved in deciding who those people were.

That’s the heart of it, isn’t it? Decisions about our kids’ classrooms aren’t abstract. They’re made—or not—every day by people we put in those seats..

And if you ask her why teachers and unions are under attack, she’s blunt:

Those countries that have gone in and out of authoritarianism… you see educators on the front lines. Because they have an outsized responsibility to not only educate their students but to educate the broader public… And so we have become a favorite target for them because they want to take away that power. And that is what I’ve been talking to our members and allies and students about: no one can take your power from you. You have to understand the power you have. Organized people always win eventually over organized money.

She’s right. And it’s why I wanted you to hear directly from her.

At a time when teachers are being villainized, when many are considering leaving the profession, when classrooms are overloaded and underfunded, we need to remember that democracy lives or dies in those rooms. If we want kids to thrive and our future to hold, we can’t afford to treat teachers as pawns in a culture war.

President Pringle is proof that courage in one school cafeteria can ripple outward to a movement. She is a reminder that educators are not just teaching math, or reading, or science. They’re teaching democracy.

When you stand with teachers, you’re not just supporting education. You’re defending democracy itself.

Let’s not forget that.

—Jaime

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