Background

As a result of severe funding cuts to our public schools over the past decade, drastically worsening racial segregation, and further privatization of our education system, the United States lags far behind the developed world in educational attainment. We score significantly below other developed nations in our math, science, and reading scores; place too much emphasis on standardized testing that fails to accurately measure student achievement; and are failing to adequately prepare our next generation to address 21st century issues in technology, engineering, medicine, and beyond. It is past time that the United States address our education system for what it is - integral to the very fabric of America’s strength and resilience as a nation.

vision

Malcolm X said that “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” For too long, the school to prison pipeline has denied the right to a full education for low-income communities of color and worsened poverty and joblessness rates.  Dismantling white supremacy and healing our communities requires a full and honest reckoning with our history as a nation. Our platform is focused on making education an inherent right, not a privilege:

Cancel student loan debt and make public colleges and universities tuition free, and create a pipeline for youth to enter the healthcare and public health workforce as the next generation of health leaders.

• Economic health is public health. When an entire generation of young people face crippling student loan debts that stifle their socioeconomic mobility, it results in long-term adverse health impacts. 

• Further, because of the astronomical costs of medical and nurse practitioner school programs, it acts as a major disincentive for youth to enter the healthcare field. Congress can solve this problem by cancelling student loan debt for all, and making public colleges and universities - including medical schools - tuition free. 

  • And through marked investments into health training classes and programs in K-12 schools, it can inspire a generation of young people to enter the health workforce. This would ensure the long-term stability of the health system, and address long-standing physician, public health, and nursing vacancies 

Provide universal free child care and pre-kindergarten.

• Child care and pre-kindergarten services are essential for public health, because early childhood education is essential to public health. Low-income Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities are most severely impacted by lack of early care and education (ECE) coverage in particular. 

  • Universal free child care and pre-kindergarten must also include additional funding for public transportation for low-income families and children. We must ensure that distance is not an obstacle to giving kids the early education they need to be successful in life.

• Multiple studies have demonstrated how intensive, high-quality, and full ECE positively impacts the educational, social, and behavioral outcomes of children later in life.

• Further, ECE is linked with lower rates of smoking, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and higher nutritional outcomes. 

Increase funding for teacher professional development, and for K-12 arts and drama education programs.

• Teachers need opportunities to continue their education, but opportunities are limited and cost can be a major barrier. We must honor the essential role of our teachers by providing more grants to public schools and directly to teachers to continue their education, earn a Master’s Degree, and receive training in new teaching technologies.

• Arts and drama programs have been chronically underfunded for years, and recent increases have not kept pace with inflation. We must fully fund Community Learning centers, provide at least $40 million annually for the Assistance for Arts Education program, and fully fund Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants.

Quadruple annual federal funding for Title I K-12 public schools to ensure low-income students, communities of color, and students with disabilities receive the education they deserve. 

• Decades after Brown v. Board of Education, thousands of public schools nationwide remain unacceptably segregated, as public schools with predominantly Black, Indigenous, and Latinx student populations remain chronically and severely underfunded. 

• Chronic underfunding of education has translated into higher disciplinary action against students of color and those with learning disabilities, dramatically worsened the school to prison pipeline, and left generations of Black and Brown youth behind in socioeconomic growth. This must stop. 

  • We must invest in students, not prisons; and teachers, not police. Significant investment into low-income public schools would lead to lower class sizes, higher education outcomes for students, expansion of modern education technologies

Establish a federal pension for all full-time K-12 public school teachers that guarantees 70% of their annual salary. 

• Underfunded teacher pensions are imposing a significant cost burden on public school education systems. It’s past time Congress stepped in with a solution that honors our teachers for the heroes that they are, and acknowledges their essential role in our economy, national security, and in advancing public health. 

  • A federal pension would remove a significant cost burden off state and local governments, and allow for those funds to be redirected into higher teacher pay and school funding.

• Over the past decade, state and local spending on teacher pensions has more than doubled, now equaling nearly 15% of state education spending overall. In addition, the teacher portion of total state public employee pension debt is a whopping $641.9 billion - or 86% of all state pension debt. 

• The economic fallout due to COVID-19 has worsened this problem, with public pension funds losing nearly $1 trillion in value this year alone - placing even greater cost burdens on strapped state and local budgets. 

  • In fact, when adjusted for inflation, state spending on K-12 education in 2018 was only 7.6% higher than it was in 2008, before the Great Recession. 

Establish a commission of Tribal leaders, Tribal Elders, Indigenous education advocates, and others to develop a national K-12 public school curriculum on Indigenous history, Tribal sovereignty, American settler-colonialism and genocide, federal treaty obligations, and present-day Indigenous identity and culture.

• Indigenous lives are among the most invisible and most misunderstood in America, as a direct result of settler-colonialist erasure of Tribal histories and identities. Most K-12 public school textbooks speak about Indigenous Peoples in the past tense, with very little (if any) public school education about the events and experiences of Native people post-1900. 

  • The erasure of Native history over the past century and whitewashing of their history prior to the 20th century is inextricably linked with the anonymity of Native lives and experiences in national discourse, insensitivity towards continued cultural appropriation, and the unique and pervasive socioeconomic and health inequities faced by Indigenous communities today.

• We must recommit to the fight for true Tribal sovereignty and fulfillment of treaty obligations - and it starts with our primary education. 

Provide full, entitlement-based funding for the Bureau of Indian Education and Tribal Colleges and Universities. 

• The federal government has treaty obligations in perpetuity to provide for the full education of Native youth. But like all of our promises to Tribal Nations and Native people, the United States has miserably failed to hold our end of the bargain. It is past time that Congress honor its constitutional obligations to Indigenous peoples by fully funding the Bureau of Indian Education and Tribal Colleges and Universities through mandatory (or off-budget) entitlement spending. 

Ban for-profit charter schools altogether. 

• Public charter schools receive the same taxpayer dollars as traditional public schools, without taxpayer accountability and oversight. Through hedge fund and private equity financing, for-profit charter K-12 schools have exacerbated racial segregation in the school system and drained more and more funding from traditional public schools. 

Fully fund implementation of the 1619 Project curriculum in all K-12 public school systems.

• A couple years ago, a group of largely Black and African American historians, researchers, educators, and advocates released a comprehensive history of slavery in America including its underpinnings, close link with the rise of capitalism and economic exploitation, and its continued generational impacts on Black America. 

• It is essential that Congress fund the implementation of this curriculum throughout public schools to ensure every generation learns the true, unvarnished history of slavery and institutional racism in America.   

Require full transparency of non-profit charter schools and strengthen teacher collective bargaining rights.

• Charter schools are not required to publicize their private financiers, attrition rates, or other relevant data. 

• In addition, teachers at charter schools face significant unionization and collective bargaining restrictions that hamper workers’ rights and deny teachers voices from being heard.  

Invest $200 billion in block grants for state, Tribal, territorial, and local governments towards creation of energy-efficient and green municipal broadband infrastructure. 

• High-speed broadband connectivity is necessary for a modern world, and especially for our public schools, colleges, and universities. The “Homework Gap” has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown youth, with roughly 2.3 million students nationwide lacking high-speed internet access.

• But we must ensure this development is publicly-owned and controlled as opposed to financing further corporate monopolization of our telecommunications infrastructure. 

Pass the Safe Schools Improvement Act and Student Non-Discrimination Act to protect and empower LGBTQ+ youth and students and strengthen Title IX.

• LGBTQ+ youth face significant discrimination, bullying, and harassment because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. LGBTQ+ students of color are especially vulnerable to discrimination and violence, especially trans youth, exposing them to higher rates of incarceration and interaction with the criminal justice system. 

• We must provide stronger federal protections against bullying by requiring schools to adopt universal codes of conduct that explicitly bar bullying and harassment of LGBTQ youth, as too many schools are refusing to protect their LGBTQ+ students and subjecting them to greater harm. 

Provide universal free school breakfast and lunch programs.

• Food security is strongly correlated with educational attainment and is necessary to protect and preserve public health. The United States has the highest number of children living in poverty in the developed world - a direct stain on our democracy and one of the biggest impediments to strong education outcomes, especially for low-income students of color.

De-emphasize standardized testing and develop innovative and equitable models - like individualized lesson plans - to better gauge student achievement and educational growth.