We’d like to see President Biden call for reinstating the universal “free and reduced lunch” program that Congress let expire last June. Too many low-income children are hungry at school, and many are incurring debt because they can’t pay for their lunches upfront. The School Nutrition Association estimates that America’s school children have incurred $19 million in debt this year alone. Schoolchildren should not have to choose between empty bellies or empty wallets.
President Biden should also announce he will direct the U.S. Education Department (ED) to monitor the proliferation of school voucher and education savings account (“ESA”) program in the states. Last summer, ED added restrictions to the federal Charter School Program (CSP) on the types of schools that are eligible for federal grants, eliminating all for-profit charter schools. The Biden administration’s effort to restrict the use of the federal money by private education entities should not stop at the public charter schoolhouse door.
One rationale ED offered for the CSP rule change was to encourage more collaboration between traditional district schools and public charter schools. To that end, we would like to see the federal CSP expanded to include autonomous innovation and partnership schools that operate autonomously from a traditional district office, pursuant to a performance contract with the elected school board. They are proving to be a resounding success in states like Texas where they are known as “1882 schools” and in cities such as Denver and Indianapolis, where they are known as innovation schools. Biden should direct ED to establish an innovation category in the CSP to encourage more district-nonprofit partnerships that improve student outcomes.
Finally, we call on President Biden to direct ED to expand the Center of Educational Excellence for Black Teachers Program at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (CEEBT) program, and to lobby Congress to increase its funding. CEEBT is designed to support HBCUs with demonstrable records of graduating skilled, well-prepared, Black teachers. Researchers from Johns Hopkins and American University in 2018 found that having even just one Black teacher in elementary school makes Black children more likely to graduate high school and makes them more likely to enroll in college. With 15 states enacting educational gag orders, many of them centered on race, it’s important for the federal government to dedicate resources to increasing America’s Black teacher corps.
This post is part of a series from PPI’s policy experts ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address. Read more here.
