Bernie Sanders is bringing back the most underrated education policy

[Donkees]

Ryan Cooper
May 21, 2019



Excerpt:

Last week, Bernie Sanders released a plan to revitalize school integration efforts. It's both an excellent plan and brings attention to a vitally important racial justice issue.

So what would Sanders do? He would end the prohibition on funding desegregation transport (a relic from that 1970's backlash), provide several pots of money to encourage schools to desegregate, triple funding support for the poorest schools, expand funding for minority teacher education, ramp up desegregation orders, and provide more money for school construction and maintenance, (as well as several other policies not directly related to desegregation). It's an excellent start, to say the least.

Now, integration is not a panacea; a disproportionate number of African-American children still come from impoverished families or face other problems rooted in systemic racism. And the biggest overall problem with American education is certainly America's hideous income inequality, as household income is very closely correlated with educational achievement. But integration does prevent them from being stuffed into essentially fake schools where rich white elites can simply let them drown — and it doesn't harm white children either.

It's also true that the federal government's power over the school system is not that great, as most power is still exercised locally. But a committed president could still achieve a lot, and more still with the support of Congress. School integration has been outside the main political discussion for a long time, and it's long since time we started talking about it again.

Bernie Sanders deserves enormous credit for bringing it back on the national radar and offering a meaningful plan to address it.

https://theweek.com/articles/842453/bernie-sanders-bringing-back-most-underrated-education-policy

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