A Right to a Quality Education

Bernie Sanders is running for president to restore the promise that every child, regardless of his or her background, has a right to a high-quality public education. Growing inequality is both the cause and the effect of our nation’s desperately underfunded public school system. Today, we say to our young people that we want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family.Bernie Sanders is running for president to restore the promise that every child, regardless of his or her background, has a right to a high-quality public education. Growing inequality is both the cause and the effect of our nation’s desperately underfunded public school system. Today, we say to our young people that we want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family. Together, as billionaires and large corporations have attacked unions and destroyed pensions, we have supported teachers who successfully stood up for their kids in strike after strike after strike. Bernie Sanders believes we must guarantee childcare and universal pre-Kindergarten for every child in America to help level the playing field, create new and good jobs, and enable parents more easily balance the demands of work and home. We must increase pay for public school teachers so that their salary is commensurate with their importance to society. And we must invest in high-quality, ongoing professional development, and cancel teachers’ student debt. We must act to transform our education system into a high-quality public good. Sanders considers it is necessary to make sure that charter schools are accountable, transparent and truly serve the needs of disadvantaged children, not Wall Street, billionaire investors, and other private interests. We need to ensure that a handful of billionaires don’t determine education policy for our nation’s children. Moreover, Bernie Sanders states we must guarantee children with disabilities an equal right to high-quality education, and increase funding for programs that combat racial segregation and unfair disciplinary practices that disproportionately affect students of color. Sanders states we must protect the tenure system for public school teachers and combat attacks on collective bargaining by corporate profiteers. We must put an end to high-stakes testing and “teaching to the test” so that our students have a more fulfilling educational life and our teachers are afforded professional respect.
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