Center for American Progress

The Country Is Thinking Big on Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. We Should Think Big About School Funding, Too
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The Country Is Thinking Big on Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. We Should Think Big About School Funding, Too

Author Scott Sargrad argues that as the United States debates bold, transformative proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, policymakers should also pursue big ideas for education funding.

The recent release of four new research studies offers growing evidence that investing in education works, particularly for students in poorer districts. Yet policymakers aren’t putting forward many big ideas for rethinking school funding. In fact, for three consecutive years, the Trump administration has proposed some of the biggest education funding cuts in history.

As we debate the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and forgiving student loan debt, we should think big for the 50 million students in our K-12 public schools. There’s general agreement among Americans that schools should prepare students for college, careers and civic life, and plenty of wealthy districts do. But if we want this opportunity for every child, we have to invest much more in education — and radically rethink a fundamentally broken school funding model.

The above excerpt was originally published in The 74. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Scott Sargrad

Vice President, K-12 Education Policy