The Democratic Party supports tripling federal aid to disadvantaged students to close between nonwhite students and their white peers, 鈥渕ore stringent guardrails鈥� for charter schools, and the idea that education is a public good and not a commodity, .
The party鈥檚 platform, which Democrats officially adopted on Tuesday, pledges to use federal programs to promote school integration through magnet schools and transportation initiatives. That promise calls to mind last year鈥檚 between former Vice President Joe Biden, who鈥檚 set to become the party鈥檚 official presidential nominee this week, and his pick for vice president, Sen. Kamala Harris of California.
The platform also calls for a more-diverse teaching workforce that relies on stronger partnerships with historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions.
In addition, the document says Democrats want to keep K-12 schools free from immigration enforcement, calls on remote instruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic to be 鈥渋ndividualized to the greatest possible extent鈥� for all students, and opposes publicly backed private school choice programs like the one earlier this year.
The platform also highlights early-education by promises to provide universal prekindergarten programs for all 3- and 4-year-olds, and says the party will 鈥済uarantee鈥� child care to lower- and middle-income families.
鈥淭he platform before us recognizes that improving education is the force multiplier for addressing the rest of our priorities,鈥� National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garc铆a said in a discussion of the party platform late last month before it was finalized. 鈥淵ou get education right, there鈥檚 a path forward. You get it wrong, you鈥檙e going to hit a dead end.鈥�
Rifts in the Party
In many respects, the new platform from a task force assembled earlier this year by Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the runner-up in the 2020 primary. And that task force, in turn, drew on several education plans put forward by Democratic candidates for president during the 2020 primary that made big, if not extravagant, promises on funding and other issues. Title I funding for disadvantaged students that Democrats want to increase by 300 percent, for example, increased by 2.8 percent from the last fiscal year to this one.
The platform demonstrates ways in which the national Democratic Party has changed in recent years, and how those shifts have exposed some divisions within the party.
In 2000, for example, . In 2020, the platform not only calls for a ban on charter schools run by for-profit entities鈥攁 decision that鈥檚 up to states and not Washington鈥攂ut says charters should be governed by the same requirements for transparency and accountability as traditional public schools.
鈥淲e will call for conditioning federal funding for new, expanded charter schools or for charter school renewals on a district鈥檚 review of whether the charter will systematically underserve the neediest students,鈥� the platform states, referring to $440 million in federal aid to support charter expansion that House Democrats want to cut by nearly 10 percent.
Some supporters of charter schools among Democrats have fought against this trend in the national party, saying that many Black and Hispanic voters support charters even as white Democrats increasingly turn against them.
Testing is another example of tension among Democrats. The platform says Democrats will encourage states to move away from 鈥渉igh-stakes tests鈥� (which the platform doesn鈥檛 define but which often refers to tests that are used to inform teacher evaluations and school ratings). It instead encourages states 鈥渢o develop reliable, continuous, evidence-based approaches to student assessment鈥� that is disaggregated by different student groups.
This position reflects years of pushback against traditional summative assessments from teachers鈥� unions and testing skeptics, who say the exams subvert teaching and ultimately serve little purpose except to be used as weapons against educators and students. in schools during a public forum late last year, although the platform doesn鈥檛 go quite that far.
Yet key congressional Democrats, education civil rights groups, and others who would largely back the Democrats鈥� new platform support the use of tests for accountability purposes like those mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. They say such tests keep a spotlight on underserved students, create pressure for certain schools to improve, and help those schools get additional funding.
In a Washington Post op-ed, for example, Chad Aldeman and Alex Spurrier of the consulting firm Bellwether Education Partners say that a Biden administration that abandons such tests and charter schools would undermine the cause of racial and socioeconomic equity in education instead of bolstering it.
鈥淭hough the platform鈥檚 policies on education may seem 鈥榳oke鈥� or trendy, they would actually steer Biden away from the coalition of Black and low-income voters who brought him the nomination,鈥� Aldeman and Spurrier . (Aldeman used to work at the Education Department during the Obama administration.)
Ultimately, the platform clearly focuses on additional funding and desegregation measures鈥� that would provide districts resources to voluntarily integrate schools鈥攚hen it considers educational equity, not charters and tests. But specifics aren鈥檛 always forthcoming: The platform says Democrats 鈥渨ill fight to significantly increase pay and benefits for all educators,鈥� yet doesn鈥檛 go as far as like Sanders did during the 2020 campaign.
Read the full platform below (the section on education begins on page 64):