Campaign Action
Sen. Kamala Harris is staking out ground in the Democratic presidential primary as a champion of public education. Harris unveiled a major plan to close the pay gap for public school teachers, who now “earn 11 percent less than professionals with similar educations,” as Harris noted in a Washington Post op-ed introducing the proposal. Not only that, but “Teachers are more likely than non-teachers to work a second job. In 30 states, average teacher pay is less than the living wage for a family of four.” Those facts have jet-propelled the teacher uprising of 2018 and 2019, and they demand an answer. Harris has one.
”As president, I will make the largest federal investment in teacher pay in U.S. history,” she vows. “We will fully close the teacher pay gap during my first term, and provide the average teacher a $13,500 raise.” The plan would begin with federal money and then call on states to increase their funding, with a $3-to-$1 federal match. Schools serving the highest proportions of low-income students would get extra help, with pay boosts to help attract good teachers and increase teacher retention.
Harris’ plan would also invest in “evidence-based programs that elevate the teaching profession”; significantly, “Half of this funding would be dedicated to historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, because more than 30 percent of all black teachers, and more than 40 percent of all Hispanic teachers, graduate from those schools.”
In addition to being an important attempt to address a major problem in American education, Harris’ plan is likely helping to boost her with the unions representing teachers. “For every teacher in America and for the 91 percent of kids who attend our public schools, this is one of the most thoughtful initiatives we’ve seen in years,” American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Sen. Harris is making sure that if we say teachers and education are important, we actually treat them that way.”
The proposal would be funded through an increase in the estate tax on the top 1 percent and by closing tax loopholes, but Harris had another answer, too: “You understand that your analysis is not how much does it cost, the question is what's the return on the investment. And on this, the investment will be our future.”