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Monday, October 21, 2019

Schools Matter: Warren Releases Solid New Education Plan

Schools Matter: Warren Releases Solid New Education Plan

Warren Releases Solid New Education Plan


Spoiler Alert: Unlike in 2016, DFER is not happy!  We shall see what the Dem platform eventually looks like, but if Warren is the candidate, it will look nothing like 2016.
I am going to do several posts on Warren's new education plan, which kicks in the ass anything released so far by the other candidates.  
The first thing I checked out in the new plan was the charter school section.  Among the best news is the promise to eliminate the half-billion federal dollars a year being handed out to corporate charter operators under the Charter Schools Program (CSP).
From The Intercept:
Warren’s new education plan sends a strong signal of how her administration would think about not only charter schools but also other forms of school privatization. 
Her plan calls to end the diversion of tax dollars from traditional public schools through vouchers and voucher-like tax credits. A campaign spokesperson clarified that this means both working to stop the expansion of voucher programs and working towards ending existing ones. 
Biden and Sanders’s plans do not mention vouchers or tuition tax credits, though Sanders told The Washington Post that he would not support using public money in the form of vouchers or tax credits for private or religious school education, which he has a long record of opposing. Biden did not answer the same question when he was asked. 
In her plan, Warren frames her opposition to the 2016 charter school ballot initiative as an example of “fight[ing] back against the privatization, corporatization, and profiteering in our nation’s schools.” 
She pledges to “go further” and now calls for eliminating a federal grant program used to promote new charter schools. She pledges to see if there are any other federal programs that subsidize new charters and would “seek to limit the use of those programs for that purpose.”
Warren pledges to fight to ban for-profit charter schools, which represent CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Warren Releases Solid New Education Plan