Donald+Trumps+stance+on+Education

Credit: Nandita Subbiah

Donald Trump’s stance on Education

Republican nominee Donald Trump has promoted “school choice,” a term that represents the allocation of federal public education funds to send students to whatever type of school fits their needs the best, regardless of the type (public, private, charter, homeschool, online, etc.). Trump’s plans to incorporate school choice into America’s education system are emphasized on his campaign website, which states he will “immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice.” According to Trump, this will be done by reprioritizing existing federal dollars.

Trump has targeted children in poverty as a demographic that needs to be boosted in education, and he claims that his school choice policy can accomplish just that. His campaign website states that he will “establish the national goal of providing school choice to every one of the 11 million school aged children living in poverty. If the states collectively contribute another $110 billion of their own education budgets toward school choice, on top of the $20 billion in federal dollars, that could provide $12,000 in school choice funds to every K-12 student who today lives in poverty.”

Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, opposes school choice. His campaign has said that Clinton claims his school choice proposal would “decimate public schools across America.” In Trump’s book, “The America We Deserve,” he asserts that school choice is just the “American Way.” He believes Clinton’s stance on school choice is influenced by her donations from The American Federation of Teachers super PAC. According to Trump, the super PAC is one of the “staunchest opponents of school choice” and contributed over $2 million for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Some of the other important educational issues Trump had stressed include his views on the proportion of government spending and student performance compared to other nations. During a speech in January 2016, Trump said, “We have third world countries that are ahead of us, countries that you wouldn’t believe, some countries that you’ve hardly heard of. Common Core is out!” Trump’s campaign website supports his stance. “We spend more per student than almost any other major country in the world. Yet, our students perform near the bottom of the pack for major large advanced countries. Our students continue to lag behind their peers worldwide in knowledge gained.” Trump’s claims are also reinforced by statistics he cites. His website states, “Among 34 Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development nations, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found 27 countries outperformed U.S students in math. The same assessment found 17 countries outperformed U.S. students in reading.”

Trump opposes and Clinton has advocated for “debt-free college.” In an April “On The Record” town hall interview, a doctoral student asked about the candidate’s plans on lowering college debt. Trump responded, “There’s no such thing as free education, because you know that ultimately somebody else is going to be paying for that education.” However, Trump’s campaign website has assured voters that the Republican nominee is still trying to make a difference. It states that he “will work with Congress on reforms to ensure universities are making a good faith effort to reduce the cost of college and student debt.”

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