Harris on education

"And that little girl was me." 

EdWeek quickly turned around this piece on Vice President Kamala Harris on K-12 education after President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and the Democratic party quickly swung behind her. 

For me, the salient point on Vice President Harris on education, as the personal is political, is that she was herself part of the voluntary desegregation of the Berkeley (CA) public schools, which started in 1968; you might remember "that little girl was me" from the 2020 campaign, which caused me to pull together this blog post on federal desegregation (and Joe Biden, whose record on this frankly is awful); I'd also point to this post from that August on desegregation.

Obviously, at this point, she's running on the current administration's record. I'll note, though, this NEA post from 2019 on six points on why they supported her running with Biden--giving her maiden speech on the Senate floor to oppose Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education may well be enough to seal the deal for some!--as well as this 2019 The Atlantic piece's intriguing look at something near to our heart here: school funding equity: 

“It is bananas,” Senator Kamala Harris told the audience—members of the American Federation of Teachers’ Michigan chapter—gathered at Marcus Garvey Academy, in Detroit, on Monday.

“It is completely upside down that we currently have a system where the funding of a school district is based on the tax base of that community,” the Democratic hopeful vying to run against President Donald Trump in 2020 said. The line met with approving head nods and a chorus of agreement. “It’s just basic math,” she continued, on a roll. “The community that has the lowest tax base is going to receive the fewest resources, and by the way probably [has] the highest need.”

More as I turn it up!