(Read Education Week’s coverage of Harris’ speech to the AFT convention.)
Vice President Kamala Harris will give one of her first speeches as a candidate for the White House to an audience of K-12 teachers here later this week.
The vice president will speak at the American Federation of Teachers’ 2024 convention on Thursday, July 25, spokespeople for the White House and the AFT confirmed. The appearance will come just days after President Joe Biden announced the end of his campaign for president, and as Harris appears to have garnered the support of enough delegates to earn the Democratic nomination for president in his place.
The AFT’s executive council was among the first organizations to endorse Harris for president shortly after Biden dropped out Sunday—an endorsement that the AFT delegates voted to ratify Monday. In a speech that day, AFT President Randi Weingarten said that Harris “has a record of fighting for us.”
Weingarten positioned Harris as the antidote to former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 election, and Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative policy agenda that proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and doing away with funding that supports schools with large populations of low-income students.
Delegates are expected to officially nominate Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Prior to her time in the White House, Harris ran for president in 2020, served as a U.S. senator representing California, and served as California’s attorney general. In her 2020 campaign, she advocated for universal preschool, teacher pay raises, and free college.
She’s been a vocal advocate for desegregation efforts in schools, such as busing, and has endorsed bills to improve STEM education for girls and underrepresented minorities, and give school districts funding to support aligning the school day with family work schedules and building stronger relationships with families.
Harris’s speech will be livestreamed on the AFT YouTube page.
K-12 in a 2nd Trump Term: Project 2025, a detailed policy agenda assembled by allies of the former president, outlines plans to dramatically scale back the federal role in education. Here’s how.
Kamala Harris’ Education Record: The vice president has touched education policy since her days as a prosecutor. What she’s said and done on K-12.
The GOP’s 2024 Education Platform: We break down the party’s nine key education positions in its official platform. Here’s what the party has in mind.
‘God Knows We Don’t Pay You Enough': Kamala Harris rallied teachers in one of her first campaign speeches. Here’s what she said.
