What the Democrats have to say about EDUCATION in their 2024 DNC Platform

At the DNC convention in Chicago, delegates just voted to approve the 2024 platform for the party. IN the 90-page platform, two pages were dedicated to EDUCATION:

EDUCATION

Democrats fundamentally believe that every student deserves a quality education, regardless of their parents’ zip code or income.

We know that education starts well before kids go to kindergarten. Studies show that children who attend preschool are nearly 50 percent more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree, no matter their background. That’s why Democrats will provide free, universal preschool for four-year olds, saving the families of 5 million children $13,000 a year.

In the wake of the pandemic, that’s especially urgent. The American Rescue Plan made the biggest investment in public education in history, providing $130 billion to help 15,000 districts reopen, rebuild, and catch kids up; funding that has worked to help our children learn. The historic investment spurred long overdue improvements in school facilities and indoor air quality, creating safe and healthy learning environments for students and school staff. Since then, we’ve also provided an additional $2 billion to high-need, Title I schools. We’ve helped districts nationwide train and hire 14,000 more counselors and social workers, so kids can heal from the disruptions of COVID, and cope with the fear of gun violence in order to focus on learning. We increased investments in full-service community schools five-fold, providing health care, nutrition, job training, and other wraparound services for kids at school, investing in their futures and making families’ lives easier.

The Administration supports a multitude of approaches that have been proven to help students learn: reducing chronic absenteeism by building social and emotional supports at schools, offering literacy programs, and setting high expectations for student attendance; providing intensive tutoring; extending the school day and school year; expanding community schools; and helping schools to lift student achievement, rather than punishing them based on state standardized tests. We support fully funding IDEA to prioritize students with disabilities and the special educator workforce. We support efforts to provide more timely, well-rounded, actionable feedback on student learning and progress to educators and to families that will support instruction and student success, while upholding rigorous academic standards. We oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education. Public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate. And we’ll continue working to increase accountability at charters, holding them to the same transparency standards as public schools. We’ll prioritize education in cutting-edge STEAM fields as well, especially for students from underrepresented communities, preparing every child to compete and thrive. And we’re working to provide every student with a pathway to multilingual education, while ensuring equitable access to a high-quality education for English learners, who’ve historically been underserved.

A quality, postsecondary education used to be a ticket to the middle class, but the cost that many folks face for higher education today is crippling families, futures, and our entire economy. It has become a barrier to opportunity. Democrats will make quality, affordable, postsecondary education a path forward again.

Four year college is not the only pathway to a good career, so Democrats are investing in other forms of education as well, including career and technical education. The Administration is expanding job training partnerships that connect high schools, local businesses, and labor unions to prepare students for good jobs in high-skill, high-wage, and in-demand industries. It’ll make trade school and community college free for every American. And it’s making record investments in registered apprenticeships – which already train more than one million Americans a year across industries, including cutting-edge industries. Some 90 percent of them stay on as full hires, earning an average starting salary of $80,000 a year. That’s a path to the middle class that families can count on.

A majority of college students graduate with student debt. It can be an overwhelming stress, as snowballing interest follows folks for decades, defining the choices they make and the jobs they take, and holding back our entire economy. Although Republican appointees on the Supreme Court blocked the President's initial student debt relief plan for 40 million borrowers, he has not stopped using every available tool to provide relief. His Administration already approved the cancellation of $167 billion in loans for nearly 5 million borrowers, including nearly a million public servants like teachers, nurses, and police; and it has outlined plans to deliver relief to 30 million borrowers in all. Meanwhile, its new SAVE plan is the most affordable student-loan repayment plan in history, helping 8 million Americans – including more than 4.5 million who now have a $0 monthly payment. These savings will transform lives, freeing people to buy a house, to start a family, or to launch a business with new hope.

For young people just heading to college now, we’ve already secured the largest increase in Pell Grants in a decade, and we’ll further expand these grants to 7 million more students, and double the maximum award by 2029. We’ve invested a record $16 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and we’re working to subsidize tuition at all Minority Serving Institutions for anyone whose family earns less than $125,000 a year.

While Democrats work to make the promise of education available to everyone, Trump just sees school as another opportunity for a scam. Trump University not only conned thousands of people into buying worthless degrees, it saddled them with thousands in debt. And, not only are Republicans trying to block our student debt relief, they are slashing funding for job training that ensures workers can access good paying jobs without a four-year degree.

At the same time, Democrats have educators’ backs. Teachers, education support professionals, paraprofessional and school-related personnel, and specialized instructional support personnel are the heart and soul of our communities; they give so much of themselves, and inspire our children to dream. The Administration has canceled student loan debts for more than 942,000 public servants, including educators. Public school educators also deserve a raise. We’ll recruit more new teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel, and education support professionals, with the option for some to even start training in high school; and we’ll help school-support staff to advance in their own careers with a living wage. We will improve working conditions and support to help make teaching a sustainable and affordable profession. We’ll keep investing in partnerships with HBCUs, MSIs, and Tribal Colleges and Universities to strengthen and diversify the teacher pipeline, so students of every background can see themselves at the head of the classroom and in charge of their schools.