“Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves and be free.”
Education is the bedrock of a successful democracy and an engaged citizenry. President McCarthy believes everyone should have full access to a high quality public education, regardless of economic, cultural or social background. By bringing all parties to the table, she is working to institute solutions that will bring down existing barriers to equal educational opportunities.
Support community colleges
Free community college should be available to all. Community colleges are powerful levers for improving upward social and economic mobility. They provide affordable and high-quality education to a large and diverse body of students, giving them opportunities they couldn’t get otherwise. This administration will make community colleges free of charge to every student by allocating federal resources and harmonizing federal and state policies.
Fair distribution of school funding
All of our nation’s public schools should receive the funding they need. Research indicates that adequate funding is one of the strongest factors impacting educational opportunities for students in k-12 schools. Yet we have large disparities in per-student funding at the state, district and local levels. It cannot continue to be the case that a student’s chance to get a good education depends so heavily on where they are born. Research has identified multiple sources of the problem, among others that nearly 50% of school funding comes from local taxes. Addressing these problems requires a coordinated effort at the federal and state level to equalize funding sources of schools across states and across the nation.
Standards as tools
We’re committed to creating standards that help students achieve real learning outcomes, and support teachers in their work. Federal standards are thoroughly developed suggestions to guide teachers and schools in crafting curriculum. To help students meet the challenges for the 21st century workforce, standards have to regularly be adapted and refined. This requires a substantial, coordinated efforts among policy makers, administrators, schools, teachers and researchers. Our administration will create more efficient channels of communication and orchestration between the multiple stakeholders to keep the federal standards up-to-date.
Supporting educational innovation
An ever-changing world needs constant innovation in how we teach and educate. This administration will reform current grant structures and decision processes to provide more efficient support for novel education initiatives and research. The role of the grant-making body will further be to rigorously analyze and synthesize data from these initiatives, and to effectively disseminate this information to Congress and educators across the country. The overall goal of these endeavors is to develop a system that regularly examines, develops and establishes best practices for education at multiple levels.