Chang-Diaz reveals ‘bold’ education plan
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz says she has a “bold” plan to shake up education that includes debt-free public college and making everything from child care to K-12 schooling more affordable and equitable.
“This plan in its entirety is an extremely bold plan to go up now to a system that offers quality, debt-free universal public education from birth into adulthood,” Chang-Diaz said.
Her eight-page plan would also lay the groundwork for the much-discussed “equitable” coronavirus recovery by offering more opportunities, she said.
It’s a “transformational” plan the Jamaica Plain Democrat concedes would carry a cost of “billions” to roll out. But she said those costs are already being carried on the shoulders of the commonwealth’s poor and minority communities.
“They’re already paying for it. We’re simply proposing a system to make the financing of public education more equitable,” she said.
Her plan adopts the socalled Common Start bill, capping child care costs at 7% of household income and making it free for families earning less than 50% of the statewide median income. Massachusetts child care costs can top $20,000, research shows. It would also address disparities in discipline actions that fuel the socalled school-to-prison pipeline and also allow residents to attend public college without incurring debt, among other things.
Chang-Diaz called out Gov. Charlie Baker — who has yet to divulge whether he’ll seek a third term — saying he has “repeatedly blocked or watered down progress” in education policy, referencing the five-year fight to pass the Student Opportunity Act.
She is the first among the growing field of gubernatorial contenders to roll out a clearly defined education plan. Former state Sen. Benjamin Downing, a fellow Democrat, in April laid out his climate plan that would push Massachusetts to 100% clean energy by 2040 — a decade earlier than the netzero emissions target set in the sweeping climate law Baker signed earlier this year.
Harvard professor and political analyst Danielle Allen, a Democrat who is the first Black woman to run for governor in a major political party, has yet to release any policy platforms. Quincy Democrat Scott Khourie, who is also running, also has little to say on policy so far.
Republican contenders for governor — former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, Lowell politician Darius Mitchell and Quincy resident Kimberly Duffy — also have yet to release any major public policy platforms.