The president of AFT makes her case for a Harris vote.
An issue of crucial importance to tens of millions of parents, students, and teachers has inexplicably gotten short shrift this election season. Nary a word was uttered about public education on either the presidential or vice-presidential debate stages. It is rarely mentioned by pollsters and pundits as a top-tier issue. But education is on the ballot next week—and the stakes are existential. Will we vote to strengthen the public schools that 90 percent of America’s children and families rely on, or to weaken and ultimately destroy our last remaining truly public institution?
Public schools need support to prepare young people for life, college, career, and citizenship. But some extremist politicians have embroiled our classrooms in toxic culture wars to soften the ground for their systematic defunding, privatizing, and voucherizing. It’s time we took the threat seriously.
I’m in schools every chance I get. I see the joy that comes from kids immersing themselves in a good book, engaging in hands-on projects, and working in teams to showcase their knowledge. I’ve seen how we can transform public schools to embed them in their communities and align them with economic and career opportunities. With so many young people still struggling through the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on their learning, development, and mental health, we need to redouble our efforts to make school more engaging and relevant, address students’ well-being, and fuel their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I know that with the right support, we can make every public school a place where parents want to send their children, educators want to work, and students thrive.
Donald Trump and JD Vance have long disparaged America’s educators and public schools, and the GOP platform will gut public education as we know it. It calls for a vast expansion of school voucher programs, despite evidence they siphon money from public schools, blow billion-dollar holes in state budgets, and cause significant declines in student achievement. Vouchers mostly go to parents whose children are already in private schools—providing a taxpayer-funded handout to the well-to-do. Since Arizona began its statewide voucher program in 2022, the promised price tag for taxpayers quintupled. In Wisconsin, 41 percent of voucher schools failed. In Louisiana and Ohio, the hit to student achievement for students in voucher schools has been almost twice the loss caused by the pandemic.
These schools can choose which students to accept; are free to discriminate against students on the basis of disability, learning styles, or identity; and lack the basic student and family services that public schools are required to provide. The choice for many rural families without a nearby private alternative would boil down to homeschooling or Zoom schools run by for-profit companies.
Project 2025 goes further. It urges the government to police local curricula, ban books, and censor teachers. It would abolish the federal Department of Education, zeroing out support for poor children and those with the greatest needs. Pulling up the ladder of opportunity would harm millions of kids and hand a victory to our international competitors. If America wants to out-educate, out-innovate, and out-compete our rivals, we need to unleash, not snuff out, kids’ potential.
