What is the education policy of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump?

The topic of education has been largely absent from this year’s presidential campaigns. But the future of American schools and colleges could depend on the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

There are “very sharp differences” between the two candidates when it comes to education, Amna Nawaz said PBS News Hour. America is facing “this decline in the ability of fourth graders and eighth graders to do basic math to read at grade levelsaid her colleague William Brangham. Trump’s ideas are “contradictory,” Brangham added: He wants to eliminate the Department of Education, but also pay “very detailed attention” to school curricula to eliminate so-called “woke” topics as critical ones. race theory and gender issues, meanwhile, have called for universal free preschool for American children.

The two candidates have “different track records,” said Robert Shand of American University The conversation. Trump’s platform calls for “universal school choice and greater parental control over schools,” while Harris served in a Biden administration that sought to expand funding for “full-service community colleges” that work to address non-classroom factors , ‘such as access to health care and healthy food’, which can influence student performance. Shand succinctly said Harris wants a “broader role” for the federal government, while Trump wants to push much of the issue to “states, localities and parents.”

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Trump tried and failed to “tear down the U.S. Department of Education” during his first term Education week. Expect another try if he gets a second term. “I think he’s going to come into power full steam ahead and get things done,” said Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s conservative education superintendent. But the former president has “never been specific” about the fate of programs — such as Title I funding for low-income schools — that the department administers. As in his first term, it is likely that Trump will try to put federal funding for K-12 education on the chopping block, according to Education Week.

While primary and secondary education programs receive the most education, “the largest expenditure of the Ministry of Education goes to higher education,” according to The New York Times. Most of the $224 million budget goes to the federal student aid program. Dissolving the agency would have to go through Congress, which is a “highly unlikely proposal,” the Times said. That does not mean that a shift is impossible. Derrell Bradford — the president of 50CAN, a nonprofit organization that advocates school choice — said both Democrats and Republicans like “the idea that local entities should have control over education at the local level.”

Harris and her allies have talked “as much, if not more” about pre-K-12 federal policies, she said NPR. In addition to universal preschool, Democrats have also proposed expanding the child tax credit to boost families with young students. For older students, Harris supported the Biden administration student loan forgiveness effortsas well as proposals to make community college free for students. During her first presidential bid in 2019, Harris also proposed increasing teacher salaries. “God knows we don’t pay you enough,” she told teachers’ union members.

Harris’ most notable statement on education may have been her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former teacher, as her running mate. As governor he signed a bill against the book ban to stop school and college libraries from removing a book “based solely on the viewpoint or messages, ideas or opinions it conveys,” said School Library Journal. “Public education,” Walz said at the signing, is a positive force in this country.