As the 2024 presidential election approaches, both candidates have made their views on education clear. Vice President Kamala Harris has been an advocate for public schools, saying teachers do “the most noble work.” She also chose Gov. Tim Walz, a former public school teacher, as her running mate. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the abolition of the Department of Education (DOE) to give education back to the states.
Dr. Nate Daun-Barnett, Department Chair and Associate Professor for the Graduate School of Educational Leadership and Policy at UB, says that getting rid of the DOE has been a debate in politics since its creation in 1979.
The goal of removing the DOE is to “stymie the role of the federal government in education policy making, remove important civil rights protections and oversight, and privatize public dollars,” according to Dr. Melinda Lemke, associate professor of Education Policy and director of the Educational Leadership and Policy for Equity Minor.
Trump is also in favor of universal school choice vouchers. These choice vouchers would give parents the power to enroll their children in any school they want, public or private.
Daun-Barnett said that giving parents more rights in the education sphere typically entails using public funds to pay for their student’s private or homeschool education.
“My contention is that this also has a racial component that we have seen,” Daun-Barnett said. “You’re making it easier for wealthier families to choose options that don’t require their children to attend school with students of color.”
Because vouchers allow parents “the choice to effectively resegregate,” Daun-Barnett says this takes away a student’s opportunity to have meaningful conversations about diverse topics. Additionally, when people aren’t surrounded by different kinds of people, they begin to see these people as “other.”
Enrollment in public schools has decreased since the pandemic, partially due to voucher programs in Republican-leaning states.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and the American rescue plan shifted public discourse around the role of education policy in the lives of everyday Americans,” Lemke explained in an email to The Spectrum.
Since the pandemic, Daun-Barnett has also noticed a shift in the public’s confidence in educators.
“What I’m concerned about, long term, is that we did delegitimize the role of professionals as teachers. Educators play a really important role,” Daun-Barnett said. “We wouldn’t do that to doctors. We wouldn’t say, oh, doctors don’t really know what they’re doing and I’m going to take care of myself, right? Our education is as important as our healthcare.”
The conservative party tends to have more support for homeschooling, which could be attributed to parents taking kids out of public school for multiple reasons.
Daun-Barnett says that even with his PhD he doesn’t feel qualified to teach his kids everything they need to know to be an active, engaged, and responsible member of society.
“When you have the election coming, you are reminded of how important it is to educate students and to discern what their priorities are,” Daun-Barnett said. “And how their priorities are being met by policymakers who were intended to represent them. I don’t care which way folks will vote. I want to see them exercise their voice.”
Sarah Owusu is the senior features editor and can be reached at sarah.owusu@ubspectrum.com
Editor’s note: A prior version of this article erroneously used an alternate spelling of "stymie." We apologize for this error.
Sarah Owusu is an assistant news editor at The Spectrum. In her free time she enjoys reading, baking, music and talking politics (yes, shockingly). She'll also be her own hairdresser when she needs a change.
Photo: Ryan Hagen | UB Athletics
