During his campaign for president, Donald Trump took a strong stance on issues like immigration and foreign trade policy, but he didn't say much about education. However, over the last few months he's given us an idea about where he stands. Based on this, here are five education changes we could see over the next four years.
1. Performance-based pay for teachers
"Our public schools have grown up in a competition-free zone surrounded by a very high union wall." Donald Trump, The America We Deserve
Trump feels that our public schools are failing, and that teachers' unions have a strong stance against giving families school choice.
He proposes:
- Merit-based pay for teachers, where students' test scores would have an impact on salary.
- Low-performing teachers would not be eligible for tenure.
2. Eliminate the Department of Education
"We want to bring education local so we're going to be cutting the Department of Education big league because we're running our education from Washington DC, which is ridiculous." Donald Trump, 8/12/16
Trump has stated many times that the Department of Education gets in the way of local control of schools, and feels that its $154 billion could be better spent elsewhere.
He proposes:
- Downsizing or eliminating the Department of Education and allowing education to be governed at the state and local level, so Iowa makes education for Iowa children, New York for New York, etc.
- Shift the DOE's office for civil rights which, among other duties tracks incidents of sexual violence on college campuses, to the Department of Justice.
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3. Greater access to early-childhood education
"For many families in our country, child care is now the single largest expense—who would think that—even more so than housing. Yet very little meaningful policy work has been done in this area." Donald Trump, 9/14,16
High costs of child-care especially hurt working families, who depend on these services in order to return to their jobs.
To solve this issue, Trump proposes:
- Guaranteed six weeks of maternity leave for new biological mothers.
- Child-care costs could be deductible from taxes up to certain income levels, including stay-at-home parents.
- Federal tax incentives for employers to provide on-site day care
- Earned Income Tax Credit dollars for lower-income families would be placed in a savings account for "child enrichment activities", which would include private school tuition.
4. School choice for disadvantaged children
"If we can put a man on the moon, dig out the Panama Canal, and win two world wars, then I have no doubt that we as a nation can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America." Donald Trump, 9/08/16
Trump believes low-income students should have the opportunity to attend a private, public, magnet or charter school of their choice, which would be funded by state grants.
He proposes:
- Eliminate the Common Core Standards; bring education to the local level.
- Redirect $20 billion in federal dollars to establish a block grant to pay for low-income students to attend a school of their choice.
- In addition, use $110 billion in state and local funds to support this effort.
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5. Less student loan burden for borrowers
"Students should not be asked to pay more on their loans than they can afford." Donald Trump 10/13/16
The president-elect wants to help young college graduates pay off their student loans.
He proposes:
- Colleges should have more "skin in the game", and could be held partially responsible for missed loan payments, high drop out rates, etc.
- Reduced federal regulations on colleges.
- Colleges would face penalties if they fail to devote more money to make their degrees affordable for students.
- Student loan repayment would be capped at 12.5 percent of a graduate's income, and remaining debt would be eliminated after 15 years.
- Student loans should originate with banks, not the federal government.
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