The Missing Education Questions in the Democratic Debate
Democrats were given little time to discuss their proposals to transform college at the third presidential debate.
All of the ingredients seemed right. The Democratic 2020 hopefuls were lined up on the stage in the gymnasium at Texas Southern University, a historically black university in Houston, Texas, for the third debate. Several of the candidates had announced plans to pump billions of dollars into HBCUs—institutions founded primarily after the Civil War to educate black people who were shut out of the rest of higher education. One of the candidates, Senator Kamala Harris, is herself an HBCU alum—of Howard University, one of the country’s most illustrious black colleges. And the debate was being held in Texas, one of six states—along with Oklahoma, Maryland, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania—that still needs to prove to the Education Department that it has desegregated its higher education system, due in large part to how it has treated its black colleges.
But the ingredients spoiled on the shelf. During Thursday night’s debate, mention of historically black colleges was little more than a guaranteed applause line. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said that HBCUs are still training and educating the next generation. Senator Kamala Harris pressed the importance of the colleges in training black teachers. Senator Bernie Sanders said he would make the colleges debt-free. But the candidates—despite having, in some cases, robust plans to boost HBCUs—were given few opportunities to discuss them.
HBCUs were not the only education issue that received short-shrift during last night’s debate. Generally, substantive conversation about the fundamental reform of education in America took a back seat to health care, foreign policy and climate. The candidates on stage were only given a brief spell to discuss their plans to revamp the nation’s education system. In the hurried few CONTINUE READING: The Democratic Debate: Where Was Education? - The Atlantic