How Do The Current Democratic Candidates Stack Up On Public Education?
You’d be hard-pressed to find many single-issue voters whose single issue was public education, but if you could find such animals, what could they make of the current set of Democratic contenders? Ignoring other issues, including what may be the biggest question of them all (”How would you get Congress to enact any of this?”), how do the candidates stack up in education?
It is heartening to see so much substantive education policy discussion; four years ago it was good enough to be for pre-K schools and against for-profit charters, the policy equivalent of being for kissing babies and against armed yetis riding on unicorns. But this time we have seen a series of policy ideas appear, garner discussion, and spread across campaigns. At this stage of the race, most campaigns agree that IDEA should be fully funded, that Title I should be increased by some large amount, teachers should be paid more, and Betsy DeVos should be done as secretary of education (this is not exactly a revelation, as most new-party Presidents clean out the cabinet, but it still gets plenty of applause).
Here’s the stack, in descending order.
Elizabeth Warren
The strength of Warren’s plan is that it is deep and wide. Warren understands that there is a whole for-profit industry hiding behind non-profit charter schools, and she supports the promise of strong schools for all students. She understands that the foundation of school segregation is community segregation. She has taken a stand against high-stakes testing. Her plan has the details and the funding to indicate that she understands the complexities involved in being a strong supporter of public education, and in turn making public education a strong part of our country itself. And she has it planned down to the pennies she’ll collect to pay for it. For an education voter, she’s one of two top choices.
Bernie Sanders
Sanders brought out his education plan early, and it was a strong support for public education then, particularly in the need for funding for education and support for teachers. At the time it was CONTINUE READING: How Do The Current Democratic Candidates Stack Up On Public Education?
