Show Trump we value education, even if he doesn’t
Government budgets are more than spending plans. Like the budgets we make for our own families, they are a statement of what we value — what we care about and what we’re willing to sacrifice.
In its recent budget plan — titled “America First” — the Trump administration laid out its values. Among them: the deepest cuts a president has sought to federal education spending since Ronald Reagan.
The cuts specifically target programs that support people who are striving to improve their situation in life, like lowincome students and first-generation college-goers. The budget would slash support for after-school programs, teacher training, class size reduction, and college work-study programs, among others — almost $10 billion in all. In this budget, it is not hard to grasp what, and who, is expendable.
That approach should particularly offend people in our region. In Silicon Valley and throughout Northern California, we’ve seen firsthand how today’s immigrant or first-generation college student is tomorrow’s entrepreneur and job creator. We live in a place that understands deeply the importance of innovation and its connection to education.
Knowing all that, we should say loudly: the values of the Trump budget are not our values. To put America first, we should be investing in all our children’s ability to thrive, contribute, compete and lead. Trump’s plan would pull the rug out from under them and their teachers.
In our roles as education advocates, we bear witness every day to the extraordinary power of excellent public schools to unlock student potential. Such schools go many extra miles to make sure that students get both the help and challenge they need. And the consequences are life-changing, as students graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college or on a rewarding
The cuts specifically target programs that support people who are striving to improve their situation in life, like low-income students and first-generation collegegoers. The budget would slash support for after-school programs, teacher training, class size reduction, and college workstudy programs - almost $10 billion in all.
career path. These supports depend greatly on the types of services the President proposes to gut.
Such cuts would hit hard in Santa Clara County, hurting efforts to strengthen teacher training, and likely forcing reduction or elimination of some after-school programs, as well as science, technology, math and multilingual education services.
The concerns go beyond the education budget. Through deep proposed reductions in housing and health, the administration’s approach would hurt low-income families and leave countless students less ready for school.
Alongside all of these cuts, the President has embraced one form of increased education funding with gusto: vouchers. Trump campaigned on a pledge to divert $20 billion into vouchers, which allow public school funds to flow to private and religious schools. His budget proposal contains a “down payment” on that pledge.
Studies have found that in general, vouchers lead to worse learning outcomes for students. They also mean that public funds flow to schools that often lack the open-admission guarantees and civil rights protections of public schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has stumbled in answering questions about whether her department would enforce basic protections in a federal voucher plan — and her department has sent strong signals of a retreat from enforcing vital civil rights protections.
As leaders who believe that quality public school choices — both district and charter schools — are vital for all families, we cannot support the divisive vision of “choice” that Trump and DeVos have put forward.
Presidential budgets are merely the beginning of a process, and many in Congress have expressed skepticism of Trump’s budget cuts. We as a region should be clear that cutting the bottom rungs off the ladder while benefiting the rich is a Robin Hood scheme in reverse. Instead, let’s demand a budget that values what we value — our children and their future.
Matt Hammer is CEO of Innovate Public Schools. Darcie Green is a trustee on the Santa Clara County Board of Education. They wrote this for The Mercury News.