• By Morgan Craven, J.D. • IDRA Newsletter • October 2024 •
Over the past several years, IDRA has built on our legacy of influencing federal education policy. We’ve done so through direct advocacy, deep collaboration with coalition partners, and strategic outreach to federal agencies.
We guide our work in federal spaces by the following set of principles that shapes all aspects of our policy, advocacy, educational practices, research and legal work.
All children are valuable; none is expendable. All public schools should be committed to an asset-based philosophy, support the strengths of the students and families in their schools, and ensure all educators hold high expectations for student achievement.
Public schools must prepare all students to access and succeed in college. To ensure this pathway to higher education, all students must have access to truthful, diverse and accessible curricula; rigorous education programs; high-quality learning materials; prepared and supported educators; and meaningful leadership opportunities in well-funded and equitably-funded schools.
All students must have equal access and inclusion in learning programs and activities. Schools must ensure the full participation of all students in learning programs and activities; comply with civil rights laws that protect access to equal educational opportunities; and create environments that affirm every student’s racial, ethnic, gender, cultural, linguistic and other identities.
Public schools must engage authentically with families and communities. This engagement is critical to school success. Families must be part of strengthening education policy and practice in their schools, districts and states.
We are all accountable for learner success. Public schools must have the resources to serve all students. Policymakers, families, communities and advocates have key roles to play in ensuring a strong public education system that is fully resourced and held accountable for the academic and social success of every young person.
This election will impact how schools are funded, how the rights of students are protected, and how the diverse young people in our country are able to access an excellent public education.
The 2024 Election and Public Education Policy
Unfortunately, this country is in a time of division over this vision for a strong public education system that serves all students. And we are confronted with efforts in states and communities to demonize and privatize public schools.
This fall, IDRA released a guide entitled Threats to Public Education in Our States & Communities: An Analysis of Project 2025 to help communities better understand some of the prominent challenges to a strong public education system. Challenges include Project 2025 and similar policy agendas offered by other organizations that seek to dismantle public schools. (See the guide in English and Spanish.)
The explainer gives an overview of some of the major education policy proposals in Project 2025 and their potential impact on students, states and school districts. Project 2025 and other similar agendas propose to fundamentally reduce and shift federal funding for public education, dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, paralyze civil rights investigation protocols and protections, and challenge long-standing policies that protect access to public schools for all children in this country.
While neither candidate for president has formally adopted Project 2025 as their official policy platform, the writers of the 900-page document describe it as a policy and government staffing guide for the next conservative presidential and state-level administrations.
We are now in the final days leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Voters across the country are selecting the next president and making decisions about local, state and congressional races.
This election will impact how schools are funded, how the rights of students are protected, and how the diverse young people in our country are able to access an excellent public education.
At the time of this writing, our understanding of the specific policy platforms of the major candidates for president is based on what they and their parties have published this election cycle and supported in previous and current elected positions.
Because IDRA is a non-partisan organization, we do not examine candidate platforms to take a position for or against a particular candidate or party. Rather, we share our understanding of the potential impact of policy proposals from a variety of policymakers to ensure students, families, educators and other members of our community understand how those proposals could impact them and their public schools.
Former President Trump’s Education Platform
The Republican party’s education policy platform includes proposals to do the following.
- Close the U.S. Department of Education, which currently serves several important functions, including collecting and publishing federal data about how students are faring in school, investigating potential violations of students’ and families’ rights, and providing funding and other resources to schools, particularly those that serve economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities;
- Implement a federal voucher program by expanding tax benefits for families who homeschool their children or send them to private schools;
- Support zero tolerance discipline practices in schools;
- Defund public schools that they believe are engaged in “political indoctrination” or “critical race theory”; and
- Support prayer and biblical teachings in public schools.
You can read the platform for yourself.
Vice President Harris’ Education Platform
The Democratic party’s education policy platform includes proposals to do the following.
- Oppose school vouchers and other privatization schemes that divert public money from public schools to benefit individual families and private schools;
- Provide free, universal preschool to all 4-year-olds;
- Increase support for social emotional learning and counseling services in schools, particularly to combat chronic absenteeism and post-COVID-19 needs;
- Support intensive tutoring, extended year and school day programs and ensure meaningful accountability for student learning;
- Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), which is the federal program that supports students with disabilities and the teachers and schools that serve them;
- Increase support for community school programs that provide support and wraparound services to serve students and adults in a school community; and
- Increase support for best practices in STEAM programming in schools, particularly for students who are underrepresented in these fields.
You can read the platform yourself online.
IDRA’s Federal Work in 2025 and Beyond
We look forward to continuing our federal advocacy in the 119th Congress beginning in 2025. We will rely upon our deep expertise in school funding, school discipline, college access, culturally-sustaining curriculum and instructional methods, student leadership and family engagement, and educational programs for emergent bilingual (English learner) students to shape our recommendations for the new presidential administration and Congress.
For information about IDRA’s specific policy recommendations in these areas, visit our policy, advocacy and community engagement website at https://idra.news/education-policy.
Please follow our updates and subscribe to our federal policy update listserv for alerts about our upcoming federal work to achieve the following.
Support legislation to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by ending corporal punishment, shifting federal funding from school police to mental and behavioral health support, and addressing harmful and discriminatory discipline practices in schools.
Increase funding and support legislation to expand opportunities for students that increase access to college, including rigorous coursework, academic counseling, family engagement, STEM programming for diverse students and expansive early college high school models.
Ensure public schools are well-funded and equitably-funded by pushing for increased federal funding for public schools serving vulnerable children (like Title I) and opposing efforts to create or expand federal and state school privatization schemes, like vouchers.
Address chronic absenteeism by uplifting recommendations that IDRA has developed over three decades of studying attrition in Texas schools. (See Page 3 and IDRA’s attrition study work).
Increase funding and technical support for high-quality programs for emergent bilingual students by working with agency partners to identify and uplift best practices in classrooms and develop resources to address the needs of students and families.
Ensure robust protections for diverse students by expanding protections for students who experience identity-based bullying and harassment and by holding accountable federal agencies tasked with protecting students’ civil rights.
Visit IDRA’s SEEN website for advocacy news and resources.
Morgan Craven, J.D., is the IDRA national director of policy, advocacy and community engagement. Comments and questions may be directed to her via email at morgan.craven@idra.org.
[© 2024, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the October edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]