Biden Presidency Progress: An Education Comeback

The Biden Administration has made meaningful progress on education issues. It can also be a winning issue for the President in 2024.

Funny enough, I almost never watched Sesame Street as a kid.

But, like many other children, I did watch educational children’s programming. When I was a kid, there were The Wiggles, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, etc.

These programs serve an important role in American culture. TV shows, radio shows, and other children’s programs offer true educational opportunities for our children and young adults. That is one of many benefits that came with the establishment of public broadcasting in 1967, in the midst of a whole slew of revolutionary legislation passed during that decade.

It all goes back to a core tenet of President and First Lady Biden’s: “a country that out-teaches out will out-compete us.” Education is fundamental to who we are as a country and what vibrant economic powerhouses look like. When we invest in our children, and in the services that strengthen them at their most critical junctures, our country will succeed and grow in the long term. When we don’t, we will leave them ill-prepared for the challenges of their time, and the whole country will suffer for it. With problems like climate change and so many others to contend with, this is a fact of life in our new 21st century society.

My grandparents’ generation, for the most, part, had it well (not that they didn’t deserve it). Many people at the time were immigrants who didn’t know the English language well. Many didn't start out with much money, wealth, property, or connections. Many didn’t have it easy with academics, and many dropped out before graduating high school to do blue-collar work. Nevertheless, with the end of the Great Depression and World War II, they had a much more vibrant economy rooted in a more vibrant educational system. After all, this was the era of the GI Bill and of more robust science education in the wake of the Space Race. Besides the social services that kept people afloat, these educational programs were essential in creating a sense of community and common purpose.

Unfortunately, over the past generation, many of the opportunities that once existed for many have come and gone. We see this all across the Rust Belt. We know the obvious reasons: deindustrialization, mechanization, and outsourcing in agriculture and manufacturing depleted local economies and low-wage communities. Yet most importantly, Reaganomics failed to help the country adjust to these economic and political transformations. Education was a major component of that. Under Reagan, public education from pre-K up to high school and college lost support from federal and state governments in pursuit of private for-profit charter networks and school vouchers. In budget after budget, governments whittled away at the financial and material supports public schools always relied on. At the same time, other efforts enacted—from inefficient standardized testing, to Common Core and other top-down education policies—created a corporatized education system, based on a mistaken view of the results that education is meant to produce.

Meanwhile, Reagan’s higher education politics helped foster astronomically expensive college tuitions and student loans—of course, the push by some institutions to develop large-scale campus construction projects and top-notch athletic facilities and the like did not help either. As such, the middle and working classes that prospered in previous decades without a college education fell behind in a new world that became more and more unaffordable.

These problems reached a bubbling point during the pandemic. There are still the issues with the state of school buildings across the country, a lack of meaningful curriculum development (vs. simply teaching to ace a test that everyone will eventually forget the answers to anyways), poor teachers’ pay and staff turnover, and the learning gaps that persisted up to this point and expanded since then.

But we should not discount what has been done and what can be done. In contrast to the many GOP-controlled states that now pursue top-down approaches to education and what is taught, the Biden Administration has made an effort to course correct. President Biden has picked a public educator to serve as his Education Secretary, someone who knows firsthand the problems teachers and school administrators have to deal with on a daily basis. He has, with the help of Congress, passed the American Rescue Plan; a plan that laid the foundation for supporting public schools, colleges, and universities on the brink, and for getting our students and teachers back on track. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and even the CHIPS Act have huge ramifications for workforce development and training following vocational schooling, giving young adults the skills they need to rebuild our country from the ground up. Finally, the Inflation Reduction Act allows schools to update their facilities and provide them with clean energy sources that keep our planet habitable and keep academic facilities warm, safe, efficient, and dry.

What President Biden undid was just as important. Trump era policies on school vouchers, predatory lenders, and sexual assaults on campus were rolled back immediately. As always, the President understood that a bad educational experience and a bad educational climate ultimately leads to a bad educational system.

The unfinished parts of the President’s legislative agenda would provide even more helpful in course correcting our education priorities. There are President Biden’s student debt relief plans, which would get hardworking students out of a mountain of debt. Although the Court struck at least one of them down, we cannot underestimate Biden’s devotion to these efforts. Yes, even though there is individual responsibility still at play, it is more than clear that the industries surrounding higher education have become a for-profit business to some private lenders and institutions, not a public good. What’s more, colleges and universities across the board have become so expensive that significant student debt is almost impossible to avoid, if one wants the college degree needed to get into many career fields. We are fortunate to have a President who realizes that this is unacceptable and will continue pursuing ways to forgive student loan debt.

There is President Biden’s continual emphasis on the need to invest on an unprecedented scale in vocational training & trade schools that prepare students for high-skill blue-collar occupations and in local community colleges that assisted families like his own. Look at his proposals. Look at his plan to set up the newest trade schools and community colleges for working families such as the ones he knew in Northeast Pennsylvania, or the Delaware River Valley. Consider his push for expanding Title I funding for the most underserved and impoverished communities in the country. That means underfunded and underperforming schools in rural communities, deindustrialized regions, and inner cities will finally get the funding and resources they need. If the GOP wishes to vote no on this and on reducing our economic, geographic, and racial disparities in education, that is not on the President or his administration that consistently and continually supports community colleges & vocational training.

There is President Biden’s plans to increase teacher pay, which would weaken the pressures present in staff turnovers across the country—a good amount due to GOP culture wars.

And there is President Biden’s efforts to keep the systems in place to take care of students dealing with mental health crises post-pandemic, a stance that has garnered him praise from prominent leaders in the mental health field. It is an issue that will linger with the pandemic aftershocks and social media alike. Luckily, the Biden Administration, unlike a post-2024 Trump Administration, will be ready to tackle it head-on.

Progress might seem slow, as it does on healthcare, energy, consumer safety, workers’ right, and pretty much every other issue. But make no mistake: President Joe Biden has made clear progress and has laid the foundation for what could truly be a major rebuilding of this nation unseen since FDR & LBJ. That rebuilding, “if we can keep it,” will get us on track with Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and other countries we currently trail behind.