In his second inaugural speech, President Obama stated, "We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher."

Before the National Rifle Association press conference today with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who claimed having armed cops in schools would end gun violence in schools, AFT President Randi Weingarten and the National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel released a statement to proposals to arm teachers from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). 

After Friday’s tragic massacre of 20 school children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., AFT President Randi Weingarten told "Meet the Press" yesterday, “Schools have to be safe sanctuaries…[there] has to be a conversation and action about both mental health as well as gun laws.”

Here’s a letter to the editor in The Hill by Diann Woodard, president of the School Administrators (AFSA), the only national education union representing principals, assistant principals and school administrators.

Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from Alabama, where she will report on the delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders as they investigate Alabama’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.

With the passage of H.B. 56, Alabama has taken a huge step backward, into the 1950s. Today, an African American delegation of labor and civil rights leaders traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on what is seen as one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.