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from Solar Power International
Education Dive
Biden is president-elect: What could it mean for K-12?
Naaz Modan
Nov. 7, 2020
Dive Brief:
After a contentious, close race, Democrat Joe Biden, who was vice
president during the Obama administration, is expected to win the 2020
presidential election. During the campaign, Biden outlined an education
policy platform that has a number of possible implications for K-12
schools, including increased teacher pay, stricter Title IX rules, more
Title I funding, additional coronavirus response and more.
Biden, whose wife is a college professor and a former public school
teacher, has vowed to select an education secretary with a background
in public education, something Secretary Betsy DeVos has been
criticized for lacking.
The presidential election results are still being contested in the
courts and ballots continue to be counted in some states. Biden's
victory is not official until the Electoral College vote in December.
Dive Insight:
Both Biden and his pick for vice president, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA,
have criticized the Trump administration's handling of school
reopenings following coronavirus-related building closures in spring.
Biden's coronavirus response plan includes reopening schools and child
care programs as the "the single most important step" to reopening the
economy. As part of the next emergency package from Congress, he said
eh would push for $200 billion in education funding.
However, as opposed to President Donald Trump's and DeVos' push to
reopen school buildings nationwide, Biden said he believes these
decisions should be made on a local level in concert with national
guidelines around coronavirus infection rates necessary to safely
resume, or delay, in-person instruction.
The president-elect said he would also amp up funds for Title I to
cover personal protective equipment, cleaning and sanitation equipment,
adjusted school schedules, reduced class sizes and infrastructure
needed for distance learning. He also proposed tripling Title I
funding, from $16.3 billion to $48 billion, "to close that gap between
the rich and the poor" and "root out" inequities in the education
system.
A Biden Education Department will also likely differ from Trump's
department on school choice matters. While Trump and DeVos have pushed
for Education Freedom Scholarships, Biden is against using public funds
to support private schools. He isn't, however, opposed to charter or
magnet schools, but favors greater accountability for the former.
Biden's education platform also calls for increasing teacher pay,
especially for early childhood educators, as a way to retain
high-quality teachers. Harris also supports raising teacher pay. In
2019, Harris announced support for teachers as they prepared for a
strike in her hometown of Oakland, California, and said in a tweet
"it's shameful that they don’t earn enough to live in the communities
where they teach."
Additionally, the president-elect has promised to overturn DeVos' new
Title IX rule, which went into effect in August and required districts
to overhaul sexual harassment and assault reporting processes. Harris
also urged DeVos in a letter to scrap the Title IX rule, joining other
senators in calling it "misguided" and saying it created "confusion for
schools about their responsibilities." However, whether Biden would
scrap the K-12 portion of the rule, in addition to the changes it
brought to higher ed, is unclear.
Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, could face challenges from
Congress, nevertheless. Control of the Senate has yet to be determined.
Republicans keeping their hold on the chamber could complicate Biden's
efforts to pass significant legislation.
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