Predicting the long run is usually in comparison with studying tea leaves. Within the case of forecasting what training insurance policies Kamala Harris would possibly pursue as president, although, a extra apt analogy could be studying her thoughts. Frankly it’s anybody’s guess what her training insurance policies could be given how few clues we’ve.
It wasn’t all the time this manner. Beforehand, presidential candidates laid out detailed plans for faculties. George H. W. Bush needed to be the training president. Invoice Clinton needed to make use of stronger faculties to construct a bridge to the twenty first century. George W. Bush needed to go away no little one behind, and transfer the Republican occasion in a extra compassionate course. Barack Obama needed Democrats to interrupt with trainer unions by embracing benefit pay.
However in more moderen cycles, training has dropped from the record of voters’ top-tier points, and candidates have grow to be more and more cagey about their plans.
Donald Trump’s administration was identified for its advocacy of college alternative, however that wasn’t one thing he talked a lot about on the marketing campaign path in 2015 or 2016; it solely got here into focus together with his choice of Betsy DeVos as secretary of training.
And Joe Biden’s unwillingness to problem progressive orthodoxy on training would have been arduous to foretell, given his average persona in 2019 and 2020. What turned out to be the most effective information to his training insurance policies was his self-identity because the “most union-friendly president in historical past” — plus the membership of his spouse, group faculty professor Jill Biden, within the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation.
Associated: Change into a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly publication to obtain our complete reporting immediately in your inbox.
So right here we’re with one other election through which training points are barely registering, making an attempt to foretell what Harris would possibly do if elected. She has stated even lower than Trump or Biden, partly due to the truncated nature of her marketing campaign, and partly due to her technique of leaning into constructive vibes and declining to supply coverage specifics within the hope that doing so will higher her probabilities of prevailing in November. Official statements — a Harris marketing campaign coverage doc and the Democratic Social gathering Platform — are skinny on particulars.
Making issues even more durable is Harris’ well-known willingness to run away from earlier positions. She did that in 2019 when the Black Lives Matter motion made it awkward for her to embrace her report in regulation enforcement — together with her powerful stance on prosecuting mother and father of truant kids.
Anticipate a brand new period of isolation, separatism and a “politics of humiliation” in training
That’s why Harris’ statements from the marketing campaign path 5 years in the past or her report as a U.S. senator solely goes up to now.
What we do know is that this: She’s sitting vice chairman. She has positioned herself in the midst of the Democratic Social gathering, not wanting to interrupt with progressives on the left or business-friendly centrists within the center.
And whereas her picture shouldn’t be blue-collar like Biden’s, she’s been cautious to not put any daylight between herself and the unions, together with lecturers unions. One in all her first speeches because the presumptive Democratic nominee was to the American Federation of Lecturers.
For these causes, it’s seemingly {that a} Harris administration would carry important continuity with Biden’s insurance policies, together with on faculties.
Image her appointing a former trainer as secretary of training, proposing wholesome will increase at school spending and talking out towards privatization, e book bans and the like. Name it the Hippocratic Oath method to Democratic policymaking on training: First, do no hurt.
Can these of us concerned in Okay-12 training hope for bolder strokes from a President Harris — together with some that may transfer the needle on reform? Something is feasible.
Her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her operating mate thrust the problem of common free faculty meals onto the nationwide radar, given Minnesota’s management on that coverage. Maybe she’s going to throw her assist behind a congressional effort to supply federal funding for such an initiative.
Essentially the most important play we’d anticipate, although, could possibly be on trainer pay. Boosting trainer salaries by $13,500 per 12 months (to shut the hole with different professionals) was the centerpiece of her training agenda when she ran for president in 2019.
It’s a standard thought, particularly since so many People underestimate what lecturers are paid in the present day.
She has a prepared automobile to pursue it due to the looming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which makes new laws round tax reform a must-pass merchandise for Congress subsequent 12 months. Essentially the most easy method for the federal authorities to place more cash into lecturers’ pockets isn’t by a sophisticated grant program to states and districts, however by way of tax credit that will move on to educators.
The tax code already permits lecturers to deduct as much as $300 for classroom bills. There are additionally a number of pupil mortgage forgiveness applications for lecturers.
A serious trainer tax credit score might shortly get costly, nevertheless, given the scale of America’s educating power (3 to 4 million relying on the way you depend it). At, say, $10,000 per trainer, that’s $30 to $40 billion a 12 months — within the neighborhood of what we spend on Title I and IDEA mixed.
A smarter, extra reasonably priced method could be to focus on solely lecturers serving in high-need faculties — as the coed mortgage forgiveness applications already do. Research from Dallas and elsewhere acknowledge that nice lecturers will transfer to high-poverty faculties — however provided that provided considerably increased pay, within the neighborhood of $10,000 extra per 12 months.
We additionally know that after we pay lecturers the identical no matter the place they train — the coverage of virtually each faculty district within the nation — the neediest faculties find yourself with the least-experienced lecturers.
A tax credit score for lecturers in Title 1 faculties — which get authorities funding for having excessive numbers or excessive percentages of scholars from low-income households — might rework the career in a single day, considerably closing the trainer high quality hole, faculty funding hole and, ultimately, the achievement hole, too.
Given Democrats’ curiosity in boosting the “care economic system,” maybe such a tax credit score might move to instructors in high-poverty childcare and pre-Okay facilities, as effectively. This could match effectively with Harris’ promise to maneuver America towards an “alternative economic system,” together with by boosting the pay of childcare and preschool lecturers.
Nonetheless, an enormous effort on “differential pay” for lecturers could be only one wonk’s wish-casting. We’ve had two presidential administrations in a row with little motion on Okay-12 training. It’s fairly seemingly {that a} Harris administration could be a 3rd.
However right here’s hoping for a pleasing shock after November.
Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a visiting fellow on the Hoover Establishment. He served within the George W. Bush administration.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about Kamala Harris’ training insurance policies was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in training. Join Hechinger’s weekly publication.
