WASHINGTON, D.C. – Like an aging rock star trying to stay relevant to a changing audience, American Federation of Teachers President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten and her band of union activists are introducing a new ad campaign to try and reclaim control of the education reform narrative.

Along with their fellow travelers in the National Education Association, Weingarten’s AFT will unleash $1.2 million in radio, Internet, and (unbelievably) full-page newspaper ads on Monday, Dec. 9 that tout the unions’ ideas for fixing public education and push back against the so-called corporate reform agenda, reports the Huffington Post.

Monday’s ad blitz will be accompanied by rallies and protests in some 60 cities, including the very-blue cities of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The unions are branding the coordinated effort a “National Day of Action to Defend Our Schools.”

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Even Weingarten admits the entire effort has a “been there, done that” feel to it.

“People have been engaged in this effort for awhile,” she conceded to the Huffington Post.

That’s putting it kindly.

The only thing more tired and dated than the unions’ ad and protest campaign is their central message, which can be summed up in four words: “Give us more money.”

In one radio spot, Weingarten bemoans that “public education is under attack and underfunded throughout our country,” and that Americans deserve “great public school as the heart of our neighborhoods.”

The reality is Americans have been following the unions’ advice for decades. Over the past 40 years, we’ve ramped up K-12 spending only to see students’ math, science and reading scores flatline. The Cato Institute produced a handy chart that shows the futility of what Weingarten and her fellow unionists are proposing.

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We’ve tried their way and it hasn’t worked.

The fact is the unions are out of ideas. All the teacher union leaders have left is this dopey ad campaign – which is filled with stale, worn-out rhetoric – and some more of those silly “save our schools protests” that we’ve been seeing for years.

This “national day of action” will be forgotten the moment after the local news channels air a few seconds of video on the 11 o’clock news. That makes this just a really expensive dog and pony show, paid for by the forced dues contributions of rank-and-file union members. It’s all kind of sad, really.

Meanwhile, those who are serious about giving disadvantaged children access to a decent education will keep proposing ideas such as school choice, vouchers, charter schools and virtual learning options that will truly revolutionize public education and free families from the failed government schools the unionists are so desperately trying to prop up.

No matter how Weingarten spins it, “a national day of (union) action” is no match for the ever-growing national reform movement.