Bernie Sanders’ federalizing teacher pay is a threat to local schools
Just when you think Vermont’s socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and the left-wing establishment could not be more insane and dangerous, they come up with a new low. This time it involves nationalizing teacher pay.
In a move emblematic of the progressive left’s growing appetite for federal control, Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders — flanked by members of the Squad and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten — has introduced the Pay Teachers Act. It is a sweeping proposal to federally mandate a $60,000 minimum starting salary for all public school teachers nationwide. While the bill is framed as a solution to the teacher shortage and a boost for educational equity, it represents a profound shift in how America funds and governs its schools with disastrous implications on local school district budgeting. It is essentially an unfunded federal mandate on every school district in America.
The Sanders Bill goes beyond the $60,000 teacher minimum wage. It also includes:
- $45,000 minimum for paraprofessionals and support staff. This would provide a full-time salary for support staff who work minimal hours each week.
- $1,000 per teacher for classroom supplies. This is based on a widely held belief that teachers spend a lot of their own money to provide supplies for students. While there are a small number of anecdotal examples, teachers making such purchases are extremely rare.
- Tripling Title I funding to $36.77 billion. Title 1 funding is supposed to help low-income students. The funds can be used for tutoring, after school programs, teacher training, technology and other programs promoted by individual school districts. It is based on an old canard that more money produces better education. It has utterly failed to improve education for low-income students in segregated minority communities.
- Billions in new federal spending on teacher training, career ladders, and school modernization. This codifies teacher benefits that are best left to contract negotiations.
This legislation would override the traditional school budgeting process in which states, cities, and school districts—as independent taxing entities—set teacher pay and benefits based on local budgets and cost-of-living. Instead, it centralizes control in Washington, with a one-size-fits-all funding mandate. It will impose undue pressure on local budgeting – and shift money away from the “children’s budget”, with direct benefits to the students in the classroom, and the “teachers’ budget”, which provides benefits to teachers and the unions – and ultimately to the political machines supported by the unions.
The Nexus Between the AFT and Democratic Party Establishment
At the heart of the push behind the Pay Teachers Bill is Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who until recently held a leadership role in the Democratic National Committee. (Do I smell a conflict of interest?)
The AFT has donated 99.9% of its political contributions to Democrats in recent cycles — totaling more than $2.5 million. It’s not just a union. It can be fairly seen as a member of the Democrats’ major donor class.
Weingarten’s coordination with Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other progressive senators underscores the union’s role as an ideological arm of the Democratic Party. The legislation was unveiled at a Capitol Hill town hall featuring union leaders and hundreds of activists, turning a policy rollout into a campaign-style rally.
Chicago …My Kinda Town
(Just so you know … I served as the senior consultant to the Chicago Board of Education during a brief period of reform and was involved in two major labor negotiations and strikes. I served in a similar capacity with the Detroit Board of Education during a union strike in the Motor City.)
Chicago stands out as a prime example of the political corruption that permeates the failing public school systems in America’s major urban centers – especially the segregated Black and Hispanic communities. The Chicago school system is irrefutable evidence that the left’s single bromide – more money – is not the solution to failing education.
What Sanders & Company are proposing only benefits the unions and the local Democrat apparat that they so generously finance. That money is used to deny minority children the opportunity of a quality educations through school choice programs.
The imposition of a federal government unfunded mandate will put more pressure on what I call the “Children’s Budget” – the money that directly serves the needs of the kids in the classroom. It will lead to unnecessary budget shortfalls that will either be funded by local tax increases or by reducing expenditures in the Children’s Budget.
The federal government has no business imposing fixed costs on every public school system in America. It will create budgeting chaos throughout the country … increase the cost of education … and produce no discernible benefit for the children. Black and Hispanic students trapped in dysfunctional schools in the segregated communities will continue to suffer from the (hopefully) last vestiges of Democrat-imposed institutional racism. The proof is in the numbers.
Now for a bit of possible good news. I doubt the Sanders et al legislation will ever be found on President Trump’s desk. Not even if Democrats succeed in taking control of the House. The announcement of the Sanders’ legislation was nothing but a public relations stunt to maintain the party’s influence over the teacher union vote.
As long as those Black and Brown kids represent money for the teachers’ union and the local political structure, there will be no improvement in education in the segregated communities. This is just a throwback to old-fashioned plantation politics.
So, there ‘tis.
You’re confusing me Bernie. I thought you wanted everything controlled by a central government out of DC.
As a teacher, who was a career enlisted soldier before I went into education, we on the bottom rung make squat as teachers. It’s pretty pitiful that my retired military and disability pay was and is more than my teacher salary. I’m not a democrat nor am I a socialist. But I believe we teachers, para educators, and other many support staff should definitely have higher pay. It’s pretty bad when an uneducated person makes more money in fast food service makes more than a para educator, some junior educators. Pathetic!
While I really doubt Sander’s bill is going anywhere, the author seems to live in a past of his own delusions. I wonder if this is just muscle memory at this point as he seams out of touch with reality. Lots of that going on right now.
He states: “This is based on a widely held belief that teachers spend a lot of their own money to provide supplies for students. While there are a small number of anecdotal examples, teachers making such purchases are extremely rare. “
NEA and AAC beg to differ based on evidence, not anecdotes. “Teachers’ out-of-pocket spending on classroom supplies varies, but recent data shows teachers spend an average of $895 to $884 for the 2024-2025 school year, covering everything from basic school supplies and decorations to snacks and technology. This amount has steadily increased, with figures from the 2020-2021 school year showing teachers spent an average of $750. Teachers spend their own money because district budgets often fail to meet student needs, and many educators feel it is essential to provide supplies to ensure all students have equal learning opportunities, according to the National Education Association and AdoptAClassroom.org.”
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/08/30/how-much-teacher-spending-school-supplies/85830237007/*
BUSTED: Does this guy know anything CURRENT about education?
And in a complete disregard for reality, the author states: “This time it involves nationalizing teacher pay. In a move emblematic of the progressive left’s growing appetite for federal control….” Uh, does the author forget our most recent election? Given his Trump support, this guy seems looney tunes on this fear and loathing having apparently missed or ignored that:
Trump has federalized our cities putting his military and secret police on our streets. Tanks are rolling downtown now. We look like Beirut, or worse.
Trump is nationalizing companies, starting with Intel. He intends to do more.
Trump is attempting an Executive Branch takeover of the Fed; he has already made the DOJ his personal legal team for revenge and retribution staffed with his previous personal attorneys and TV personalities.
Trump has federalized our universities setting social policy for them via grant extortion.
Perhaps the worst is Trump attempting to federalize our national elections, previously the Constitutional responsibility of the States. According to the Brennan Center, Trump is: “attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems; targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair; supporting people who undermine election administration; and retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the election process.”
Next he will attempt the hat trick; a third term.
But instead, the author has his panties in a wad over a Sander’s bill that will never see the light of day.
BUSTED
Frank Danger, your points are lucid counter to Mr Horist’s article locked into Chicago in the last Century. The fact is he will not read your reply much less comment on it.
Apparently he happy in his ivory tower dispensing his conspiracy theories and out dated opinions in the shadow of Trump’s tyranny and delusion that Trump has improved America from Biden’s policies to make a hot and great economy.
Horist is again finding different paths in his obsession with denigrating the left.
AC you really should call him Frank Dunger. Otherwise he gets confused
Willie can’t do any better.
He can’t debate liberals with facts n figures, just name calling spew like a child.
Trump campaigned against help for local schools. He is positioned to gut funds allocated by Congress for local schools across the country. Then the Department of Education goes next.
He wants the funds for schools going to replace tax money lost by giving his billionaire buddies a huge tax break.
Trump has said he has collected trillions from his illegal tariff scam when the actual accounting is less than half a trillion. He knows what inflation is. He inflates the value of his properties, the number of trade deals he has closed, the tariff receipts, the percent of Americans who agree with his ways as president.
Larry was very vocal when Biden was president with how terrible Biden was. Nothing about Trump’s irreverent abuse of the Office of the President as no other president has abused that positions power in this nation in its 250 year history.
Trump has wrecked and ravaged greater men’s accomplishments in his short 8 months in office than the 5 worst presidents had in total. Pick your worst five and realize the U.S. Constitution held firm. Trump has no understanding of the Constitution that made the country great by the disrespect he shows with breaking law after law.
You libtard fools can’t name one thing that kumbreath Harris would have done to make America better. Hate Trump is your battle cry. So keep it up. It’s working. For us MAGA patriots. When you think of anything let us know. And when you are good enough to kiss Trump’s ass. He really is helping the country. Your ho would do nothing but stand around and cackle. You and Dunger are like two queers in a barrel