Predicting the long run is commonly in comparison with studying tea leaves. Within the case of forecasting what schooling 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 schooling insurance policies can be given how few clues we’ve.
It wasn’t all the time this fashion. Beforehand, presidential candidates laid out detailed plans for faculties. George H. W. Bush wished to be the schooling president. Invoice Clinton wished to make use of stronger faculties to construct a bridge to the twenty first century. George W. Bush wished to go away no little one behind, and transfer the Republican social gathering in a extra compassionate route. Barack Obama wished Democrats to interrupt with instructor unions by embracing benefit pay.
However in more moderen cycles, schooling has dropped from the checklist of voters’ top-tier points, and candidates have turn out to be more and more cagey about their plans.
Donald Trump’s administration was recognized 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 along with his collection of Betsy DeVos as secretary of schooling.
And Joe Biden’s unwillingness to problem progressive orthodoxy on schooling would have been onerous to foretell, given his average persona in 2019 and 2020. What turned out to be the very best information to his schooling insurance policies was his self-identity because the “most union-friendly president in historical past” — plus the membership of his spouse, neighborhood school professor Jill Biden, within the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation.
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So right here we’re with one other election wherein schooling points are barely registering, attempting 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 optimistic vibes and declining to supply coverage specifics within the hope that doing so will higher her possibilities of prevailing in November. Official statements — a Harris marketing campaign coverage doc and the Democratic Get together 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 legislation enforcement — together with her powerful stance on prosecuting mother and father of truant youngsters.
Anticipate a brand new period of isolation, separatism and a “politics of humiliation” in schooling
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 vp. She has positioned herself in the course of the Democratic Get together, not wanting to interrupt with progressives on the left or business-friendly centrists within the center.
And whereas her picture isn’t blue-collar like Biden’s, she’s been cautious to not put any daylight between herself and the unions, together with lecturers unions. Certainly one of her first speeches because the presumptive Democratic nominee was to the American Federation of Lecturers.
For these causes, it’s doubtless {that a} Harris administration would convey vital continuity with Biden’s insurance policies, together with on faculties.
Image her appointing a former instructor as secretary of schooling, proposing wholesome will increase at school spending and talking out towards privatization, guide bans and the like. Name it the Hippocratic Oath strategy to Democratic policymaking on schooling: First, do no hurt.
Can these of us concerned in Ok-12 schooling hope for bolder strokes from a President Harris — together with some which may transfer the needle on reform? Something is feasible.
Her collection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her operating mate thrust the difficulty of common free faculty meals onto the nationwide radar, given Minnesota’s management on that coverage. Maybe she’s going to throw her help behind a congressional effort to supply federal funding for such an initiative.
Probably the most vital play we would anticipate, although, could possibly be on instructor pay. Boosting instructor salaries by $13,500 per yr (to shut the hole with different professionals) was the centerpiece of her schooling agenda when she ran for president in 2019.
It’s a well-liked concept, particularly since so many Individuals underestimate what lecturers are paid as we speak.
She has a prepared automobile to pursue it because of the looming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which makes new laws round tax reform a must-pass merchandise for Congress subsequent yr. Probably the most easy means for the federal authorities to place extra money into lecturers’ pockets isn’t via a sophisticated grant program to states and districts, however through 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 scholar mortgage forgiveness applications for lecturers.
A significant instructor tax credit score may rapidly get costly, nevertheless, given the dimensions of America’s instructing drive (3 to 4 million relying on the way you depend it). At, say, $10,000 per instructor, that’s $30 to $40 billion a yr — within the neighborhood of what we spend on Title I and IDEA mixed.
A smarter, extra reasonably priced strategy can be to focus on solely lecturers serving in high-need faculties — as the scholar mortgage forgiveness applications already do. Research from Dallas and elsewhere acknowledge that nice lecturers will transfer to high-poverty faculties — however provided that supplied considerably increased pay, within the neighborhood of $10,000 extra per yr.
We additionally know that after we pay lecturers the identical no matter the place they train — the coverage of just about 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 — may remodel the occupation in a single day, considerably closing the instructor high quality hole, faculty funding hole and, finally, the achievement hole, too.
Given Democrats’ curiosity in boosting the “care financial system,” maybe such a tax credit score may move to instructors in high-poverty childcare and pre-Ok facilities, as properly. This might match properly with Harris’ promise to maneuver America towards an “alternative financial system,” together with by boosting the pay of childcare and preschool lecturers.
Nonetheless, a giant 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 Ok-12 schooling. It’s fairly doubtless {that a} Harris administration can 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’ schooling insurance policies was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Hechinger’s weekly publication.