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Sanders Report Details Plot by Right-Wing Billionaires to 'Sabotage' Public Education
"Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education."
Jun 25, 2024
Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report Tuesday detailing how right-wing billionaires are bankrolling coordinated efforts to privatize U.S. public education by promoting voucher programs that siphon critical funding away from already-underresourced public schools.
The report notes that last year, the American Federation for Children (AFC)—an organization funded by former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—"ousted state lawmakers in Iowa and Arkansas who resisted proposals to subsidize private education in states and passed expansive private school vouchers."
Aided by millions of dollars in funding from DeVos and her husband, "AFC's political affiliates and allies spent $9 million to win 277 out of 368 races to remove at least 40 incumbent lawmakers," the report adds.
The DeVos family is hardly alone in using its wealth to undercut U.S. public education. The Bradley Foundation, which has been knee-deep in efforts to privatize education in Wisconsin and across the country, spent $7.5 million in 2022 "to fund 34 state affiliates of the State Policy Network to push conservative policy agendas, including privatizing education, and $8.3 million to building a youth movement to 'win the American Culture War.'"
"The Koch-sponsored group, American Encore, has funneled substantial amounts into state governor races and ballot initiatives around the country, including more than $1.4 million to elect Arizona's former governor Doug Ducey in 2014 (who led the efforts to create the nation's first universal private school voucher)," the report adds.
"For too long, there's been a coordinated effort to sabotage our public schools and privatize our education system. Unacceptable."
The analysis also names billionaires Jess Yass of Susquehanna International Group, Richard Uihlein of Uline, and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot, all of whom have recently donated to the School Freedom Fund—a PAC that supports voucher programs and shuttering the U.S. Education Department.
School voucher programs
disproportionately benefit wealthy families, analyses have shown, while undercutting the goal of serving all students within a community.
"Over the past decade, there has been a coordinated effort on the part of right-wing billionaires to undermine, dismantle, and sabotage our nation's public schools and to privatize our education system," Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said in a statement. " That is absolutely unacceptable."
"We can no longer tolerate billionaires and multinational corporations receiving massive tax breaks and subsidies while children in America are forced to go to understaffed, underresourced, and underfunded public schools," Sanders continued. "On this 70th anniversary year of Brown v. Board of Education, let us recommit to creating an education system that works for all of our people, not just the wealthy few."
The new report, authored by the Senate HELP Committee's majority staff, comes days after Sanders presided over a hearing at which a pair of public school teachers decried the low educator pay and lack of resources plaguing schools across the U.S. and threatening the foundations of the country's public education system.
The committee's report shows that while most states have chronically underfunded their public schools, spending on voucher programs that subsidize private schools with taxpayer dollars has surged across the country. Between 2008 and 2019, according to a recent analysis cited in the report, Florida ramped up spending on voucher programs by 313% while "decreasing per-pupil funding of public schooling by 12%."
"The expansion of private school voucher programs forces very real tradeoffs. Money spent on private school vouchers could instead be used to hire teachers, raise wages, hire school counselors, and invest in high-quality academics for students," reads the new report, which estimates that "Arizona could hire 15,730 more public K-12 teachers with the money it is instead spending on private school vouchers."
The report calls on Congress to help reverse the trend of billionaire-backed school privatization by investing more in public education—including early childhood education and community schools—and by passing Sanders' legislation to set the pay floor for U.S. public school teachers at $60,000 a year.
The report also recommends passage of the
College for All Act, a Sanders-led bill that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from households making less than $250,000 a year.
"As the richest country in history, the United States should have the best education system in the world," Sanders' report reads. "Our public education system is not perfect—it is underfunded and racially and socioeconomically segregated. Our educators are not respected or paid nearly what they deserve."
"Massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations are being prioritized over opportunities to progressively raise revenue to support social services and public education," the report continues. "Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education. This requires adequate and equitable funding and addressing structural challenges in our public schools."
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Sanders Warns 'Absurd' Low Pay of Teachers Fueling Public Education Crisis
"We cannot continue to run our public education system on the backs of saints and martyrs," an elementary school teacher testified to a Senate committee.
Jun 20, 2024
A pair of public school teachers warned a key Senate committee on Thursday that low educator pay in the United States is fueling staff shortages across the country and damaging the country's education system, which is also under sustained attack from right-wing lawmakers who want to slash federal investments in schools and abolish the Department of Education.
"The number one reason teachers leave the profession is the pay," John Arthur, an elementary school teacher in Holladay, Utah, told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee during a hearing convened by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
"The number one reason parents don't want their children to become teachers is the pay," Arthur added. "So the number one solution to addressing the issues we face must be increasing teacher salaries."
"The situation has become so absurd that four—one, two, three, four—hedge fund managers on Wall Street made more money last year than every kindergarten teacher in America." —Sen. Bernie Sanders
In written testimony submitted to the Senate panel, Arthur argued that low teacher pay, chronic lack of resources, and extreme stress exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic are at the core of staffing crises that are impacting an overwhelming majority of U.S. school districts, posing a threat to the entire public education system.
"We cannot sustain a healthy, effective public school system when so few parents want their kids to join me and my friends in the classroom," Arthur's testimony reads. "We cannot continue to run our public education system on the backs of saints and martyrs. We must raise wages to the level at which we can successfully recruit and retain the talent we need to effectively educate all children, regardless of zip code."
A teacher at Philadelphia's third-largest elementary school, Gemayel Keyes, echoed Arthur, noting during Thursday's hearing that low pay and substantial student loan debt have forced him to work a part-time job and denied him "the American dream of homeownership."
"We must invest in our teachers but also in our paraprofessionals," said Keyes. "If we continue to underinvest in the pay and working conditions and don't match the responsibilities and job expectations, the paraprofessionals shortage will rise, the same way the pipeline of teachers has declined. I must also acknowledge and fully recognize that my job as a teacher would be impossible to do without my paraprofessional staff."
Watch the full hearing:
According to the latest data, the average starting teacher salary in the U.S. is $44,530, and nearly 80% of the nation's school districts pay a starting salary below $50,000. Teachers have a starting salary below $40,000 per year in around 30% of U.S. school districts.
The national average teacher salary is $69,544, and significant recent pay increases in some states have not been enough to keep up with inflation.
Just 15% of K-12 public school teachers are extremely or very satisfied with their pay, according to a Pew survey released earlier this year, and 68% say their job is "overwhelming."
"Student absenteeism is at an all-time high and teacher shortages are at crisis levels in most states," William Kirwan, vice chair of Maryland’s Accountability and Implementation Board, told the Senate panel. "Our students do not perform well on international assessments. Alarm bells should be ringing across the country."
Sanders, the lead sponsor of legislation that would set the minimum annual salary for U.S. public school teachers at $60,000, said during his opening remarks at Thursday's hearing that "for decades, public school teachers have been overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and, maybe most importantly, underappreciated."
The senator added that while there are "many reasons" why U.S. public school teachers are leaving their jobs each year at double the rate of peer nations, "one of the primary reasons is the extremely low pay teachers receive."
"Incredibly, the average public school teacher in America is making nearly $100 a week less than she or he did 28 years ago after adjusting for inflation," said Sanders. "Meanwhile, because of lack of resources and tight school budgets, about 80% of public school teachers are forced to spend their own money on classroom supplies without being reimbursed."
"The situation has become so absurd that four—one, two, three, four—hedge fund managers on Wall Street made more money last year than every kindergarten teacher in America," Sanders continued. "Public school teachers should not be forced to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. They should not be forced to be on food stamps."
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Research Shows 10,000+ Killed or Harmed in Growing Global Attacks on Education
"In places like Gaza, in addition to the horrific loss of life, education itself is under attack," said the executive director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education From Attack.
Jun 20, 2024
More than 10,000 students, teachers, and academics were killed or harmed in thousands of attacks on education in 2022 and 2023, according to research published Thursday amid Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip, which has seen its schools and universities decimated by the U.S.-backed Israeli bombing campaign.
The Global Coalition to Protect Education From Attack (GCPEA) identified roughly 6,000 attacks on education in 2022 and 2023, a 10% increase compared to the two preceding years. The highest number of attacks took place in occupied Palestine, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Myanmar, and explosive weapons—including rockets and landmines—were involved in about a third of the attacks.
"In places like Gaza, in addition to the horrific loss of life, education itself is under attack," Lisa Chung Bender, GCPEA's executive director, said in a statement. "School and university systems have been shut down, and in some cases completely destroyed. This will have long-term consequences on social and economic recovery, as the very infrastructure needed for peace and stability have been targeted."
GCPEA researchers estimate that more than 475 attacks on schools took place in Palestine last year, surging after Israel launched its large-scale assault on Gaza following the deadly Hamas-led attack on October 7. Israeli forces have damaged or destroyed every university in the Gaza Strip as part of what United Nations experts have described as a "systemic obliteration of education."
"On average, eight attacks on education were recorded daily over the past two years, meaning a startling number of students were unable to follow their dreams."
In addition to attacks on education infrastructure, the new report shows that targeted attacks on students, teachers, and prominent academics have become more frequent worldwide in recent years.
"More than 10,000 students and educators were reportedly killed, injured, abducted, arrested, or otherwise harmed by attacks on education in 2022 and 2023," GCPEA's new report notes. "The number of students, teachers, professors, and education staff killed or injured increased by over 10% compared to 2020 and 2021, the period covered in the last Education Under Attack report."
Jerome Marston, a senior researcher at GCPEA, said that "on average, eight attacks on education were recorded daily over the past two years, meaning a startling number of students were unable to follow their dreams of learning, or develop the skills that an education promises."
"Schools should be safe havens, not targets," said Marston.
The new report stresses that growing attacks on education have taken place "against a backdrop of increasing conflict" and a worsening climate emergency, which GCPEA said "may be linked to attacks on education" such as the "lootings of school canteens" in areas impacted by severe hunger.
"In late March 2022, a suspected armed group allegedly looted a school canteen in Komangou village, Gourma province, Est Region, Burkina Faso, on two consecutive days, as reported by a local media outlet," the report observes. "On November 16, 2022, a suspected armed group allegedly attacked a school and looted its canteen in Fatakara village, Timbuktu region, Mali."
Additionally, the report makes a preliminary connection between climate-fueled extreme weather events and attacks on education.
"For instance, in the Philippines, climate change has contributed to more intense typhoons, affecting in particular the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that has faced decades of protracted armed conflict," the report notes. "The U.N. reported that an armed group in the region attacked a school being used as shelter by people displaced by emergencies while state security forces were nearby for disaster-relief efforts."
GCPEA calls on all parties to armed conflicts across the globe to "immediately cease attacks on education" and urges governments to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, an international effort to protect education during war.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel have backed the declaration.
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