Trump, Biden face off on education

As the Nov. 3 election approaches rapidly, voters are deciding who to support. President Donald Trump, a Republican, and former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, have very different ways of approaching the educational system in America. 

 Biden plans on improving the public school system in different ways. He emphasizes public schools and public school teachers need to be better funded. Biden promises to “make sure teachers receive a competitive wage and benefits.” To do this Biden will triple the budget for Title I, which is the federal program for funding schools. 

Not only would Biden increase funding for public systems, he would also ban for-profit charter schools from using federal funds for public schools. Biden wants to create free preschool for everyone by working with “states to offer pre-K for all 3 and 4-year-olds and expand Head Start and Early Head Start.” He promises to invest in community colleges and make them free for students. To do this he would create a federal-state partnership to create more funds for community colleges.

Trump has a different approach and criticized public schools in his inaugural address, calling them “an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.” Instead, he supports other options.  The Republican platform states, “We support options including home schooling, career and technical education, private or parochial schools, magnet schools, charter schools, online learning and early-college high schools.” 

Trump plans on increasing the funding for charter schools, and supports the voucher system to support private schools. In 2019 he proposed a $5 billion federal tax program on donations that help fund scholarships for private and vocational schools. 

“I support Biden’s plan on funding public schools because public schools have the majority of people so I think that they should get more government funding,” explained CVHS senior Lindsey Gard.

During the coronavirus pandemic Trump has encouraged schools to reopen, while Biden has supported online schooling. Trump believes that keeping schools closed is a threat to the children’s well being and hurts their education. Because children are at an extremely low risk of dying from COVID-19, Trumps thinks that it is safe to reopen schools. Trump spent $13 billion on pre-K to help schools reopen safely.  He has threatened to cut federal funding if schools don’t reopen this fall. 

Biden on the other hand, thinks that it is too soon to reopen schools, and Trump is being unsafe by promoting it. To help schools cope with the coronavirus Biden would make the Federal Emergency Management Agency ensure that K-12 schools had federal aid. 

“It is extremely irresponsible to even think about reopening at this time. Dr. Fauci has continually said the reopening of schools would be an extremely foolish move, as it would cause another spike in cases,” said CVHS senior Shane Tayag.