Lawmakers are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week 2025 by paying tribute to the educators who helped them ascend to Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said his wife and mother-in-law, who were both educators, are his favorite teachers. Johnson added that his classroom teachers along the way positively influenced the “trajectory” of his life.
“I credit so many of those people, in many ways, for being in the position I’m in now,” Johnson told ABC News.
“Teachers are one of the most underpaid professions, so we certainly do appreciate them,” he said.
Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, had several teachers who greatly impacted her life, but she told ABC News that it was her high school music teacher who recognized her talents.
“Not so much musical talent, but he saw the opportunity to sharpen my leadership skills and he honed in on that and allowed me to grow,” De La Cruz said.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who has worked in the banking, finance and insurance industries, said his high school math teachers helped challenge him.
“That was really the building blocks for me moving on to finance and college,” Donalds said. “I always appreciate them.”
Freshman Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., a new member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said he’s a “big fan” of teachers.
He brought a teacher from his district in Washington to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress because he said educators inspire “the next generation.”
Baumgartner, who comes from a family of educators, said he doesn’t believe he would be where he is today without teachers.
“I had nuns that taught me — I went to a little Catholic school in a small rural community — and I remember them making us do cursive [handwriting], which I hated, but it was kind of that discipline, that inspiration and just that love of learning that you developed, so it was great,” Baumgartner told ABC News.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., praised the nation’s teachers and said “the United States of America has to continue to celebrate and lift up our public schools, our educators and our capacity to make sure that people receive a first-rate education so that they have a pathway into the American dream.”
Several members of Jeffries’ caucus are decorated educators, including Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., the 2016 National Teacher of the Year. Hayes launched the Congressional Teacher Caucus to start Teacher Appreciation Week 2025.
She said the caucus aims to provide a dedicated platform for educators serving in Congress to find commonsense solutions to addressing the educational issues of today, according to a release from Hayes’ office.
But Hayes opposes the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. She is squarely focused on defending public educators from the threats to winnow down the agency and launched the caucus in response to them.
“I believe deeply in public education, and I’ll always advocate not only for students but for the profession,” Hayes previously told ABC News.
In the upper chamber, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a former teacher, launched the “Save Our Schools” campaign to investigate attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said last month in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
“Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”
Warren suggested she is working with students, teachers, parents and unions to “sound the alarm” nationwide. Prior to politics, Warren was inspired by her second grade teacher to join the education ranks.
“Whenever someone asked about my future, I would stand a little taller and say, ‘I’m going to be a teacher,'” Warren recalled. “It guided my entire life.”
Dismantling and defunding teacher preparation programs will ultimately hurt the profession, according to Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.
Horsford credited his high school teacher Mr. Ware for motivating him to become the first person in his family to attain higher education.
“He said he saw something in me and that I needed to believe in myself,” Horsford told ABC News.
“Now, to be here in Congress, and achieve some of the things that I have been able to achieve, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without that education, that investment in myself, by getting my college degree,” he said.
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