The media received early copies of Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s plan for K-12 education. Like Warren and Sanders, he proposes a large increase in funding for the neediest children and for early education. He wants to see a reduction in college tuition. He does not propose a wealth tax on the 1%. He is against for-profit charters but, unlike Warren and Sanders, would not eliminate or freeze the federal Charter Schools Program, which currently dispenses $440 million a year, mostly to big corporate chains like KIPP and IDEA.
Mayor Pete’s plan is a centrist program, which could have been drafted by the Center for American Progress, the think tank for the Obama administration.
Valerie Strauss describes the plan here.
She writes:
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is unveiling a broad new education plan on Saturday that pledges to spend $700 billion over a decade to create a high-quality child care and preschool system that he said would reach all children from birth to age 5 and create 1 million jobs.
The 37-year-old, openly gay mayor of South Bend, Ind., also promised to spend $425 billion to strengthen America’s K-12 public schools, targeting federal investments and policy to help historically marginalized students. He would boost funding for schools in high-poverty areas as well as for students with disabilities, and promote voluntary school integration. And he said he would ensure that all charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — undergo the same accountability measures as schools in publicly funded districts…The more than $1 trillion in his plan would be spent over 10 years and would come from “greater tax enforcement” on the wealthy and corporations, according to a Buttigieg campaign spokesperson, who asked not to be identified. He would not impose a new tax on the super-rich, the spokesperson said, who did not detail how much money the mayor believes he can realize from uncollected taxes…
Buttigieg’s new education plan details a push to help communities integrate their schools racially and economically, which research shows is beneficial to black and white students. The mayor pledged to invest $500 million into communities that want to undertake integration efforts. And he said he would reinstate Obama era guidance on the voluntary use of race in state- and district-level strategies to achieve integration, removing current restrictions on the use of federal funds to pay for busing that would be part of integration efforts.
He also pledged triple funding for Title I — the largest federally funded educational program, intended to help schools with high concentrations of students who live in poverty. But that added funding would be targeted to states and districts that “implement equitable education funding formulas to provide more state and local resources to low-income schools….”
Both Sanders and Warren have called for free college tuition for all, while the mayor’s recently released higher education and workforce development plan calls for lowering college tuition and fees on a sliding scale, with free college for those students whose families early up to $100,000. Former vice president Joe Biden, who has topped the polls more consistently than any of the other candidates, has also taken education positions less expansive than Warren and Sanders.
Buttigieg’s big initiative in this plan is around early childhood, for which he has pledged to spend $700 million to create a new system to provide child care and prekindergarten to all children, which he said is more than 20 million, and that would create 1 million new jobs in that sector.
For additional insight on Mayor Pete’s plan, read Matt Barnum and Kalyn Belsha’s account here in Chalkbeat.
It doesn’t matter what Democrat beats Trump in 2020 if the GOP still holds the majority of seats in the U.S. Senate and Moscow Mitch or someone that thinks like him is the majority whip of the Senate.
FiveThirtyEight says, “The Senate Will be Competitive Again in 2020, But Republicans Are Favored.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senate-will-be-competitive-again-in-2020-but-republicans-are-favored/
Nate Silver also said Hillary would win the Presidency against Trump just before the election, with a 71.4% (Clinton) vs 28.6% (Clinton) probability.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
There is reason for taking anything Silver (and “analysts” like him) say with a large block of salt , especially this far out.
Personally, i find the whole “election prediction” thing puzzling when it is geared toward the general public.
It ONLY makes sense if it is done for candidates (eg, so they can knows where to campaign) but is just stupid when done for the voting public (Silver’s target audience).
Then again, Silver is not a statistician, but a statustician, concerned mainly with his own status.
How much did Silver make when the NYT bought ThreeFiftyEight?
Silver’s main problem is that he doesn’t understand uncertainty, which leads him to assign probabilities to outcomes that are larger than are warranted.
He was trained as an economist at U of Chicago, home of free-market fundies, which might explain his misunderstanding of statistics.
Silver also wrote a piece that explained how the longshot Trump could win. I read it.
“Statustician”, great word play.
The pollsters reported after 2016’s election that they got a significant amount of info. for their predictions from the candidates’ campaigns. Michael Moore described Democrats as fair weather voters. He knew and publicly told Hillary’s campaign how they were going to lose.
Lots of unforced errors but, after Hillary’s loss, Neera Tanden kept her job at the Center for American Progress… makes a person wonder.
large block of salt. YES. 🙂
You are correct. If by some miracle Bernie wins, which I fervently hope, he would be thwarted, road blocked and stalled at every opportunity by the GOP controlled senate. As that scum “blank”, Mitch McConnell, blocked so many of Obama’s judicial appointments including Merrick Garland for the SCOTUS. Mitch or his clone would block all of Bernie’s progressive programs or any judicial appointments.
Beshears won in Ky. Gives me hope.
Since the disaster of having a Democratic president use ARRA funds to bribe states into attacking the teaching profession with test score pay, one has to by extremely weary when a candidate suggests “targeting” Title I funds to bribe states into anything. I can see it now, “equitable education funding formulas” during the campaign turns into test score merit pay funding formulas and charter incentives once in office. I can see it now, withholding Title I funds to blackmail states into destroying public education. Didn’t we have enough of the carrots and sticks last time around. Can’t believe this guy is in the running.
Would his preschool morph into some “corporate pay for success” scheme? Will there be a million jobs or a million computers in preschool? What training would be required for these teachers? Or would these preschool jobs pay $9 dollars per hour and put any warm body in the position? I have more questions than answers.
retired teacher, I snorted when I read his exhortation that his preK/ childcare program would result in “a million new jobs” – would that be 2nd, or 3rd gigs for the lower-midclass/ working poor – cuz these are the people I work with everyday, and those who are not lower-midclass/ working poor are retirees supplementing social security incomes, or part-time college students living with parents, or [like me] subsidized by much-larger spouse income. Oh sure, he’ll “increase their pay… from $12/hr to $15/hr?
LCT: excellent point
Chalkbeat says “he’s also calling for a $10 billion “equity fund” for early education.
It would go to programs targeting low-income students of color and using “novel teaching methods and materials, targeted support services, school-family partnership programs, communication and personalization technologies, and other innovative strategies.”
This is not good news for early education eararked for low income students of color…”Personalizatioon technologies ” is an oxymoron. “Novel teaching methods and materials” also stikes me as an open door to scams from KOCH funded marketers of “innovative strategies.”
Like so many smooth talking neo-liberals, Mayor Pete speaks with forked tongue. Scepticism is required.
Pete wants the billionaire checks to keep rolling in.
In Bulwark, a current conservative writer/former employee of Jeb Bush and the RNC wrote that Dems who were critical of Pete were being unfair.
Republicans want Pete as the Democratic candidate for one of two reasons- they think he’s easier for Trump to beat or, Buttigieg’s platform aligns more closely with theirs, which is important if Trump fails at the polls.
When you look up “glittering generalities” in the dictionary, it says “See Barack Obama. But if that falls, see Mayor Pete”
I think your major complaint about CSP is that the money sometimes goes to schools that close quickly or even don’t open. But, you also like to put down CSP money going to the established CMOs that you like to call “chains”. Expanding these experienced operators great track records is one way to ensure CSP money results in new schools opening.
The big corporate chains like KIPP and IDEA are super rich. They get big grants from the Waltons and other rightwing Funders. They don’t need federal aid.
It’s telling that you would describe not-for-profits that provide education as “too rich” and imply there’s something wrong with supporting the children in those schools. Do you realize your advocating for less money going to public education?
CSP money helps start schools and can only be spent on specific startup expenses. It especially helps charters that grow one grade at a time, which is a very responsible way to open a school if it can be afforded.
Charter schools are not public schools.
The CSP was created in 1994 when there were very few charters. It was intended to help new charters get a start.
It has been twisted into a slush fund to underwrite the expansion of corporate charters that have deep pockets and are heavily funded by billionaires.
School chains rob communities of the benefits of economic multiplier effect i.e. their intent is to destroy Main Street and enrich Wall Street.
I thought Wal-Mart already destroyed Main Street long ago.
Technically-yes.
Traitors like John threaten Local Community Place.
Charters hollow out communities and send public money out of the community.
Giving public funds to charter schools that never open or quickly close is an obvious waste, but giving public funds to open any charter schools is also a waste when the money could have gone to public schools and paid for reduced class sizes, nurses, counselors, librarians, special ed services, books, materials, equipment, competitive compensation, food services, transportation, repair and maintenance, and so on. And so on. When a charter school opens and drains public schools of funding, the public schools cannot simply reduce services to pay for the loss. So any money that goes to opening any charter school is not only a waste of money, it is a destructive loss for public education that continues as long as the charter stays open. Staying open is not a success.
Cutting CSP funds is cutting funds for public education. I realize it isn’t the subset of public education that you support, but it still is for millions of students.
And the argument about “draining funding” without acknowledge that districts are losing more students than they are dollars/student is just not accurate. School districts have to adjust costs when they lose students regardless of why. If they can’t do that, that’s a structural or political problem. I just don’t think schools are entitled to money for students they’re not educating.
Public schools that lose students to charters lose more than per-pupil funding. If 5% of students are lured by the promises of a charter, the public school can’t cut 5% of a principal, 5% of heating and grounds. They must lay off teachers and increase class sizes. So the 95% in the public school suffer so that the 5% can have a choice, in many cases of a school inferior to the public school.,
And there are fixed costs that can’t be reduced when public schools lose students to charters which are private contractors taking public funds, not public schools. Public schools are run by people elected by the public. These are facts.
Sorry Diane, the first word of my last comment was supposed to be ‘So’ not ‘And’. Oops.
The first word was supposed to be ‘so’ not ‘and’. Oops.
Aw, now the website is messing with me, making me think my comments disappeared when they didn’t. Oops oops!
It appears Pete gets his talking points from the beltway’s corporate-funded Center for American Progress.
I do not trust the Man from McKinsey.
This was my comment at Strauss’ article [comment thread hijacked by Malcolm Fitzpatrick, fringe libertarian– as usual!]:
A lot of this is weak tea. On the one hand Buttigieg tries to meet Sanders & Warren’s plans to multiply Title I funding & fully fund IDEA, on the other says he’ll pay for it by collecting unpaid taxes? – No plan on how, though (my guess, IRS has been trying to do that for decades). Conclusion: status quo. He’ll put $500million in incentives for integration plans, good & reasonable – why not say he’ll pay for it by re-directing funds currently used to pad charter start-ups [CSP]? Charters re-segregate. Outlaw for-profit charters & subject all charters to audit: how? fed is going to re-write state charter laws? Going to foot the bill for fed-monitored annual audits by states? Not likely. Besides, few charters are officially for-profit now, & under our weak-kneed not-for-profit laws it will be a simple matter of re-shuffling accounting practice to grossly overpay admin, et al legal fin shenanigans that divert tax revenues into their kitty—a rose by another name.
And just a niggle: iPads on the 1st day of 1st grade is not an indicator of well-funded public ed (much less good pedagogy), it’s a sop to ed-tech-industry, & tone-deaf to the LAUSD Chromebook scandal.
Bob Shepherd’s education plan: return power over curricula and pedagogy to teachers at the building level. Get districts out of that business. Let them concentrate on legal compliance and facilities.
Get districts and states and the federal government out of that business. Legal compliance: nondiscrimination and equitable pay.