Tuesday, September 10, 2019
"No president or
presidential candidate has offered a proposal so bold and sweeping."
More than 100 national
education leaders are publicly backing 2020 Democratic presidential primary
candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders' plan to reform the American school system, his
campaign announced Tuesday.
Unveiled in
May, the Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education calls for "a
transformative investment in our children, our teachers, and our schools, and a
fundamental re-thinking of the unjust and inequitable funding of our public
education system."
"No president or
presidential candidate has offered a proposal so bold and sweeping, which
directly addresses the fiscal starving of American public education at the same
time that the federal government got into the business of regulating,
mandating, and controlling the nation's schools and classrooms," declared
Diane Ravitch, former U.S. assistant secretary of education and research
professor at New York University.
Sanders aims to address
"the serious crisis in our education system by reducing racial and
economic segregation in our public school system, attracting the best and the
brightest educational professionals to teach in our classrooms, and
reestablishing a positive learning environment for students in our K-12
schools," according to his campaign.
"Bernie's strong and
ethical education platform is exactly what I've hoped for," Jonathan
Kozol, a National Book Award recipient and activist for public schools and
racial equality, said Tuesday. "His courageous and unqualified support for
racial integration of our public schools sets him apart from the timid and
equivocating centrists who have put unprincipled consensus ahead of social
justice in the primary campaigns."
The White House hopeful's
public education proposal has 10 key goals:
-Combating Racial
Discrimination and School Segregation
-End the Unaccountable
Profit-Motive of Charter Schools
-Equitable Funding for Public
Schools
-Strengthen the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
-Give Teachers a Much-Deserved
Raise and Empower them to Teach
-Expand After-School/Summer
Education Programs
-Universal School Meals
-Community Schools
-School Infrastructure
-Make Schools a Safe and
Inclusive Place for All
Part of Sanders' education plan
includes banning new for-profit charter schools. As Common Dreams reported earlier
this year, he was the first candidate in the Democratic primary race to take
that position.
"Ninety percent of
parents in this country send their kids to public schools, and they want those
public schools to be a top priority," Randi Weingarten, president of
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and another backer of Sanders' plan, said
Tuesday. "That's why Sen. Sanders' plan to invest in public schools and
provide real accountability over private alternatives is vitally
important."
Weingarten, Ravitch, and Kozol
were joined by dozens of other education leaders, union organizers, school
reform groups, and college professors who endorsed Sanders' platform—as
students and educators across the country kick off a new school year.
Other supporters of the plan
included Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT; Abdul
El-Sayed, former executive director of the Detroit Health Department; Adolph
Reed Jr., professor emeritus of political science the University of
Pennsylvania; Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research; and Cornel West, professor of the practice of public philosophy at
Harvard University and professor emeritus at Princeton University.
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