Bernie Sanders on Education Democratic primary challenger; Independent VT Senator; previously Representative (VT-At-Large)

Sub-sections under Education:
• College Costs
• Voting Record
• Other issues under Education

Loan forgiveness helps working families & low-income people

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Well, he's wrong. 60% of the benefits go to people who were on Pell grants, 87% of the benefits go to people who are making $75,000 a year. I know it is shocking to some Republicans that the government actually, on occasion, does something to benefit working families and low-income people. I don't hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires.

Pay for free tuition with tax on Wall Street speculation

School-to-prison pipeline is a horror show

Freeze private charter schools; they have no accountability

SANDERS: Yes.

Q: Why?

SANDERS: Because I think that charter schools are able to do things that public schools can't. They can pick and choose the students that they get. Their teachers are not able to become union members. They don't have the accountability that public schools do. And we have seen many, many problems in charter schools. And they are taking money away from public education. So I think public money should go to public schools, and we're going to freeze all private charter schools funding.

Make HBCUs debt-free, and cancel all student debt

Save millennials by cancelling student debt

Universal free meals in schools

ONE CANDIDATE HAS SIMILAR VIEWS: Julian Castro.

Two Democratic candidates have proposed universal free meals in schools, regardless of a student's family income. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro are touting the proposals as a way to ensure children don't go hungry and to eliminate the potential for "lunch shaming"--when schools single out students with unpaid bills.

Some high-poverty schools and school districts can already offer free meals to all students, but the practice is currently limited to areas where a certain percentage of the students are from low-income households.

School food programs cost the Agriculture Department $18.2 billion in fiscal 2018, according to preliminary data. Neither Sanders nor Castro has released specifics about how they would pay for their proposals, which are part of broader education platforms.

Rejected from Harvard in 1950s due to Jewish quota

Busing an option, but integrated community schools are best

Forgive student loans for both higher ed and trade school

Sanders: Our plan forgives massive amounts of student debt. Every place I go, you ask people about student debt, they're paying $50,000. If you go to graduate school, medical school, could be $300,000, $400,000. That is insane. Our plan will cancel a substantial amount of student debt and in some ways probably go further than Senator Warren's. And when we talk about higher education, not just college. There are a lot of young people who are not academically inclined who need to get trade skills.

Crucial to invest in pre-K education for our future

Education is the great equalizer on path to middle class

Today, perhaps the most important pathway to the middle class runs through higher education. While not all middle-class jobs in today's economy require a college degree, an increasing number do. People need a higher education to make it to the middle class and successfully compete in a global economy.

It is my view that all students in this country, regardless of income, have the right to higher education if they have the ability and desire to obtain one.

Revolution needed in child-care and preschool jobs

At a time when nearly 60 percent of women are now in the workforce , we need a revolution in this country in terms of how we provide child care and Pre-K education. The bottom line is that we have got to make sure every family in America has the opportunity to send their kids to a high quality child-care and Pre-K program

No privatization; no vouchers; charters only with standards

BS: I am strongly opposed to any voucher system that would re-direct public education dollars to private schools, including through the use of tax credits. In addition, I believe charter schools should be held to the same standards of transparency as public schools, and that these standards should also apply to the non-profit and for-profit entities that organize charter schools.

Q: What are your views on the privatization and contracting out of public services, including school services?

BS: I am strongly opposed to the outsourcing and privatization of public services. The reality is that many private contractors provide jobs with low pay and no benefits with little or no training. In the long-term, in most instances, privatization leads to poor service, high turnover, and an overall increase in taxpayer dollars.

Low income kids deserve free education, including college

CLINTON: Both of us share the goal of trying to make college affordable for all young Americans. I have a compact that would do that for debt-free tuition. We differ, however, on a couple of points. One of them being that if you don't have some agreement within the system from states and from families and from students, it's hard to get to where we need to go.

SANDERS: 150 years ago, Americans said low income kids deserve to get a free education. That free education was from first grade to 12th. This is 2016. A college degree today is equivalent to what a high school degree was 60 years ago. We should have free tuition at public colleges and universities. That should be a right of all Americans regardless of the income of their families.

Replace NCLB standardized testing with holistic approach

Ok to include mandates and incentives in Common Core

A: A set of academic standards in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) which outline what a student should know at the end of each grade.

Q: Why are the Common Core standards so controversial?

A: Critics argue that implementing the Common Core will be a painful transition for teachers and students, that the standards are too vague, and that they will lead to high costs due to the need to update technology and to replace obsolete curricula. Advocates argue that the new standards will allow for more cohesion between states' educational systems, and will bring more academic rigor to the classroom.

Q: How has Bernie voted on Common Core?

A: While Bernie has neither outright endorsed nor opposed the Common Core, he voted in early 2015 against an anti-Common Core amendment that would "prohibit the federal government from mandating or incentivizing states into adopting Common Core." This indicates that Bernie opposes a repeal of the Common Core standards.

Vouchers redirect public education dollar to private schools

The two largest teachers unions both strongly oppose vouchers. The AFT labeled them an attempt "to undermine or otherwise diminish the role of public education in our society." The NEA "opposes school vouchers because they divert essential resources from public schools to private and religious schools, while offering no real 'choice' for the overwhelming majority of students."

Like the two largest teachers unions in the country, Bernie is "strongly opposed to any voucher system that would re-direct public education dollars to private schools, including through the use of tax credits."

Charter schools ok if held to public school standards

Bernie's stance on charter schools is similar to that of both the AFT and NEA teacher's unions, which do not oppose charter schools, but seek to ensure that they are run in ways that benefit the students. The NEA, for example, shares Bernie's concern that these schools must be run transparently to increase accountability: "As taxpayer-funded schools, charter schools must operate in a manner that is transparent and accountable to the families and communities they serve."

Taught low-income preschoolers through Head Start program

Do away with fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests

• Standardized testing: "Promote creative learning by doing away with 'fill-in-the-bubble' standardized tests, and instead evaluate students based their understanding of the curriculum and their ability to use it creatively." (May 2015).
• Tests and accountability: "I think it is wrong to judge schools solely on the basis of narrow tests. We have to work on what kind of criteria we really need. A kid is more than a test. We want kids to be creative. We want kids to be critical thinkers. We also want schools held accountable for factors other than test scores, including how they meet the challenges of students from low-income families." (April 2015).
• Race to the Top : "It is unacceptable that nearly $5 billion of federal 'Race to the Top' funding has been distributed while Vermont and many other states have not received a penny." (June 2012).

Education begins before age 4 or 5

• Early childhood education: "We must do away with the archaic notion that education begins at four or five years old. For far too long, our society has undervalued the need for high-quality and widely accessible early childhood education." (February 2014).
• Teacher pay: "Something is very wrong when, last year, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers earned more than the combined income of 425,000 public school teachers. We have to get our priorities right." (February 2015).
• Education and upward mobility: "In the United States, all people who have the desire and the ability should be able, in this changing economy, to receive all the education they need regardless of their income. This must be done not only to rebuild the disappearing middle class but to make us competitive in the global economy." (February 2015).

Quality affordable education, from child care to higher ed

170,000 high school grads annually have no funds for college

As many as 170,000 high school graduates each year are prepared to go on to college but cannot afford that. Let me repeat that. About 170,000 young people in this country, who graduate high school, who want to go to college, are unable to do it because they cannot afford it.

Are we nuts? What are we doing in wasting the extraordinary intellectual potential of all of these young people? What we are saying to them is because you don't have the money and because college is so expensive, and because our Federal Government is more busy giving tax breaks to billionaires and fighting two wars, we are not investing in you. That makes no sense at all.

1976: produced educational filmstrips on New England history

Although I now had a business career, in an important sense my political work had not ceased. I was educating people, not from a podium or in a radio interview, but by resurrecting the heroes of our nation's political past.

Free public college; support for historically black schools

College for All: $2 federal match for every state $1

I outlined a simple and straightforward proposal that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free. This plan, the College for All Act, would allow all Americans, if they had the ability and the desire, to go to college regardless of the income of their families. It would also prevent them from going deeply into debt as a result of their education. The College for All Act would create a partnership between the U.S. government and states that would provide $2 in federal funding for every dollar a state spends on making public colleges and universities tuition-free for undergraduate students. The plan would also cover 100 percent of the costs of books and room and board for low-income students.

Free tuition at public colleges for most students

Student debt is crushing young graduates

CLINTON: I believe in affordable college, but I don't believe in free college, because every expert I have talked to says how will you control costs. I want to make sure middle class kids, not Donald Trump's kids, can afford college. The numbers don't add up, from what Senator Sanders has been proposing. That's why all the independent experts that have vetted both of us have concluded that it is not achievable. Let's go down a path where we tell people what we will do. A progressive is someone who makes progress. That's what I intend to do.

SANDERS: I believe that public colleges and universities should be tuition free. How do we pay for that? We pay for it by a tax on Wall Street speculation. The middle class bailed out Wall Street in their time of need. Now, it is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.

Tax Wall Street and make public universities free

$70B to make public colleges & universities tuition-free

CLINTON: Well, first of all, it isn't the middle class. I have made very clear that hardworking, middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase.

Q: Gov. O'Malley, you also want to make public college debt-free.

O`MALLEY: In Maryland, yes, we did in fact raise the sales tax by a penny for our public schools; we were the only state to go four years in a row without a penny's increase to college tuitions.

Q: Senator Sanders, you want to make public college free altogether. Isn't this throwing a lot of money away since 1/3 of these people are not going to complete college?

SANDERS: No, it is an extraordinary investment for this country. Germany & many other countries do it already. This is revolutionary for education in America. It will give hope to millions of young people.

Q: And you want to have the states pay for about 1/3 of this $70 billion plan, correct?

SANDERS: Yes.

Look at college degree like high school diploma 50 years ago

SANDERS: Germany and many other countries do it already. In fact, if you remember, 50, 60 years ago, the University of California, City University of New York were virtually tuition-free. This is revolutionary for education in America. It will give hope to millions of young people.

Q: And you want to have the states pay for about 1/3 of this $70 billion plan, correct?

SANDERS: Yes. Bottom line here is, in the year 2015, we should look at a college degree the same way we looked at a high school degree 50 or 60 years ago. If you want to make it into the middle class, the bottom line now, is in America, in the year 2015, any person who has the ability and the desire should be able to get an education, college education, regardless of the income of his or her family. And we must substantially lower, as my legislation does, interest rates on student debt.

1950s "high school for all" is now "free college for all"

Free public university tuition, like we had 50 years ago

SANDERS: I believe that it is absurd that, in a highly competitive global economy, we have got hundreds of thousands of bright young people who are qualified to go to college, but can't because their families lack the income. So, yes, I do believe that public colleges and universities should be tuition-free. Is this is a radical idea? Well, other countries around the world do that, because they know investing in their kids is good for their economy. So I do believe that we need a system, which is not free college education for all. It's free tuition in public colleges and universities. I think it is simple, it's straightforward. It exists in other countries and, in fact, 50 or 60 years ago, used to exist in the United States of America.

Other countries recognize benefits of free college