Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences
Academy in Cleveland, OH
September 8, 2016
Trump Outlines Bold New Plan for School Choice
Donald J. Trump today laid out a detailed plan for school choice and
said it's time to break with better failures of past:
"As your President, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader
for school choice. I want every single inner city child in America who
is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil
right – to attend the school of their choice. I understand many stale
old politicians will resist. But it’s time for our country to start
thinking big once again. We spend too much time quibbling over the
smallest words, when we should spend our time dreaming about the great
adventures that lie ahead." - Donald J. Trump
Thank you. It’s great to be here today.
In particular, I want to thank Mr. Ron Packard and Ms. Deborah Mays
for hosting me at their school.
Today, we are going to discuss one of the most important issues in
this campaign: school choice.
But before we do, I want to briefly discuss new revelations about
Hillary Clinton’s emails. According to the FBI report: “The FBI did
find that hostile foreign actors gained access to the personal email
accounts of individuals with whom Clinton was in regular contact, and,
in doing so, obtained emails sent to or received by Clinton on her
personal account.”
Remember, Hillary Clinton was emailing about the drone program –
among many other extremely sensitive matters.
This is yet more evidence that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be
commander-in-chief. By the way, the whole country saw how unfit she was
at the Townhall last night, where she refused to take accountability
for her failed policies in the Middle East that have produced millions
of refugees, unleashed the horror of radical Islamic terrorism, and
made us less safe than ever before.
Throughout it all,
she put the entire country at risk in order to cover-up her
pay-for-play scandals as Secretary of State. These include scandals
like giving up our uranium to Russia, doing favors for UBS bank, and
selling contracts to friends and family in Haiti.
It’s all about hiding her criminal enterprise at the Clinton
Foundation.
As part of her criminal cover-up, Hillary Clinton’s staff digitally
bleached her emails after receiving a Congressional Subpoena. Her staff
also destroyed some of her 13 different phones with a hammer.
Then, when she was interviewed by the FBI, she claimed she couldn’t
remember important events 39 times. She couldn’t even remember whether
she was trained on handling classified information. She even said she
didn’t know that the letter “C” stood for confidential classified
information.
All the while, as Hillary and Bill raked
in millions of dollars from special interests, the world fell apart.
Hillary Clintons’ policies produced ruin in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. She
failed in Russia, in China, in North Korea.
Her policies unleashed ISIS, spread terrorism, and put Iran on the
path to nuclear weapons – not to mention the ransom payments.
On top of it all, Hillary Clinton is trigger-happy. She’s raced to
invade, intervene, and topple regimes. She believes in globalism, not
Americanism.
Last night, she even falsely said no
American died in Libya. Then she also falsely said there’s no ground
troops in Iraq, even though we have 5,000 military personnel there
right now.
Iraq is one of the biggest differences in
this race. I opposed going in, and I opposed the reckless way Hillary
Clinton took us out – letting ISIS fill the void.
But I was opposed to the war from the beginning.
Long after Howard Stern, but three months before the Iraq war
started,
I said, in an interview with Neil Cavuto, that “perhaps [we] shouldn't
be doing it yet,” and that “the economy is a much bigger problem as far
as the President is concerned.”
Then, On March 25th
of 2003, just days after the war started, I was quoted as saying the
war is “a mess,” yet more clear evidence that I had opposed the war
from the start.
In July of 2003, I said that “I would love to
see New York City and some of the cities and some of the states get
some of the money that`s going toward Iraq and other places, because
you know, they really need and it they need it badly.” I had a number
of quotes to this effect.
Then, in August of 2004, very early in the conflict, I made a
detailed statement to Esquire magazine.
“Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never
have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is
going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to
the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily
going to step up to lead the country? C'mon. Two minutes after we
leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest,
smartest, most vicious guy will take over.
What was the
purpose of the whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people
killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and no legs?
Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown
to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were
blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!
I would have been tougher on terrorism. Bin Laden would have been
caught long ago.”
Had
I been in Congress at the time of the invasion, I would have cast a
vote in opposition. For years, I have been a critic of the kind of
reckless foreign invasions and interventions that have been the
Hallmark of Hillary Clinton’s failed career.
Here is the bottom
line: I was a private citizen. I had no access to the briefings that
Hillary Clinton had. But in Iraq, my judgement was right and hers was
wrong.
Hillary Clinton is always complaining about what’s
wrong, but she’s been there for more than 30 years and has never done
anything about it – all you have to do is look at New York State, when
she was a Senator. All talk, but nothing happened.
We’re on track to spend $6 trillion altogether on the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, massive portions of our country are in a state of
disrepair.
It’s time to rebuild America.
Too many Americans living in our inner cities have not been included
in the American Dream.
We are one nation, and when any part of our country hurts – our
whole country hurts.
My goal as President will be to ensure that every child in this
nation
– African-American, Hispanic-American, all Americans – will be placed
on the ladder of success: a great education, and a great job.
That ladder rests on a fundamental foundation: safety.
In order to help our children succeed, our first duty is to ensure
that every kid in America can grow up in a safe community.
You can’t have prosperity without security.
This is the new civil rights agenda of our time. The right to a
safe community, a quality education, and a secure job.
Our campaign represents the long-awaited chance to break with the
bitter failures of the past, and to embrace a New American Future.
There is no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our
government-run education monopoly.
The Democratic Party has trapped millions of African-American and
Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the
opportunity to join the ladder of American success.
It is time to break-up that monopoly.
I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped
in
a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the
school of their choice. This includes private schools, traditional
public schools, magnet schools and charter schools which must be
included in any definition of school choice.
Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this
initiative – with billions left over. It’s simply a matter of putting
students first, not the education bureaucracy.
Let’s run through the numbers.
At
the state and federal level, the United States spends more than $620
billion on K-12 education each year. That’s an average of about $12,296
for every student enrolled in our elementary and secondary public
schools.
The federal government pays for about 10 percent—$64 billion, to be
precise—of the K-12 costs. That $64 billion makes up about half of the
total spending of the U.S. Department of Education.
The other roughly $570 billion spent on K-12 education comes from
the states.
We spend more per student than almost any other major country in the
world. Yet, our students perform near the bottom of the pack for major
large advanced countries.
Our largest cities spend some of the largest amounts of money on
public schools.
New York City spends $20,226 dollars per pupil.
Baltimore spends $15,287 dollars per student.
Chicago spends $11,976 dollars per student, and in Los Angeles it is
$10,602.
Just imagine if each student in these school systems was given a
scholarship for this amount of money – allowing them and their family
to choose the public or private school of their choice.
Not
only would this empower families, but it would create a massive
education market that is competitive and produces better outcomes.
These
schools would then cater to the needs of the individual student and
family – not the needs of the Teachers’ Union. There is no more
important job than a teacher, and teachers will benefit greatly from
these reforms.
The current government monopoly, while great for the bureaucrats,
has utterly failed too many students.
According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, only 1
in 6
African-American students in the eighth grade are considered proficient
in math and reading.
Failing schools then contribute to failing economies.
In
Los Angeles the official unemployment rate for African-American men is
almost 20.7 percent. In Baltimore, it is 16.2 percent, 14.7 percent in
Chicago and 10.9 percent in New York City.
In Los
Angeles, 26 percent of African American women live in poverty. In
Baltimore, the poverty rate for African Americans is 27 percent. In New
York, over 31 percent of African Americans live in poverty.
Nationwide, nearly 40% of African-American children live in poverty
– including 45% of children under the age of six.
Our public schools are failing to put young Americans on a path to
success.
Meanwhile, we have all seen the tragic rise in crime in these
communities – which remains one of the greatest barriers to fostering
opportunity and success for America’s children.
Violent
crime rose more than 20% in Los Angeles in 2015. Homicides in Baltimore
increased by 63%. There have been nearly 3,000 victims of shootings in
Chicago so far this year.
Government is failing our citizens at every level.
That is why I am proposing a plan to provide school choice to every
disadvantaged student in America.
That means parents will be able to send their kids to the desired
public, private or religious school of their choice.
Here is how it will work.
Right now, about $1.9 billion is spent on fifty private school
choice
programs nationwide. These are opportunity scholarships, tax credits,
and education savings accounts. This covers about 400,000 students in
our country.
Altogether, school choice is serving more than 3.4 million students
nationwide.
Charter
schools, in particular, have demonstrated amazing gains and results in
providing education to disadvantaged children and the success of these
schools will be a top priority for my Administration.
They also produce competition that causes better outcomes for
everyone.
My
first budget will immediately add an additional federal investment of
$20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by reprioritizing
existing federal dollars.
Specifically, my plan will use $20 billion of existing federal
dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids
living in poverty.
We will give states the option to
allow these funds to follow the student to the public or private school
they attend. Distribution of this grant will favor states that have
private school choice and charter laws, encouraging them to
participate.
This $20 billion will instantly extend choice to millions more
students.
A
state like Ohio will benefit greatly from these new funds. Ohio is a
leader in school choice. Ohio has 5 private school choice programs that
serve over 30,000 students, and 384 charter schools serving 123,844
students.
But the $20 billion is only the beginning. As President, I will
establish the national goal of providing school choice to every
American child living in poverty.
That
means that we want every disadvantaged child to be able to choose the
local public, private, charter or magnet school that is best for them
and their family.
Each state will develop its own formula, but we want the dollars to
follow the student.
9
in 10 dollars spent on K-12 education is spent at the state and local
level. To achieve this long-term goal, we will have to make this a
shared national mission – to bring hope to every child in every city in
this land.
I will use the pulpit of the presidency to campaign for this in all
50 states, and I will call upon the American people to elect officials
at the city, state and federal level who support school choice.
My
Administration will partner with the leadership of any inner city in
America – Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit – that is willing to run a pilot
program to provide school choice to every child in that community. In
Baltimore, for instance, that would mean more than $15,000 funds
available per student.
I am confident that the politicians will not be able to suppress
the will of the people anymore.
If
we can put a man on the moon, dig out the Panama Canal, and win two
World Wars, then I have no doubt that we, as a nation, can provide
school choice to every disadvantaged child in America.
If the states collectively contribute another $110 billion of their
own
education budgets toward school choice, on top of the $20 billion in
federal dollars, that could provide $12,000 in school choice funds to
every K-12 student who today lives in poverty.
The
money will follow the student. That means the student will be able to
attend the public, private, charter or magnet school of their choice –
and each state will develop its own system that works best for them.
As your President, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for
school choice. I understand many stale old politicians will resist. But
it’s time for our country to start thinking big once again. We spend
too much time quibbling over the smallest words, when we should spend
our time dreaming about the great adventures that lie ahead.
I will also support merit-pay for teachers, so that we reward great
teachers – instead of the failed tenure system that rewards bad
teachers and punishes good ones.
At the same time, we have to ensure that jobs are waiting for our
young kids when they graduate high school and college.
My policies will add millions of new jobs to our country, especially
for our African-American and Hispanic communities.
My plan to lift restrictions on the production of American energy
will
not only make home energy bills cheaper, but it will add an estimated
half a million jobs per year.
By reducing radical regulation and over-taxation, we can bring
thousands of new companies into our poorest communities.
Crucially, my trade reforms will create a manufacturing revival in
America. We have a nearly $800 billion dollar annual trade deficit with
the world – that’s money coming straight out of states like Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maine, and so many others. By ending foreign
currency manipulation, product dumping, and other predatory trading
practices, we will be able to open thousands of new plants and
factories across America.
The future is filled with limitless possibilities for our nation,
and exciting opportunities for our children.
All we have to do is cut our ties with the failed politics of the
past.
We’ve had a failed foreign policy. A failed education policy. A failed
economic policy. And, underneath it all, a failed political system that
rewards politicians for how many donors they have – or how many
journalists they know – not how many Americans they help to live better
lives.
But the failures of the past are about to end.
Those failures end beginning on November 8th.
We will have One American Nation.
We will be One American People.
We are fighting to give every child, in every forgotten stretch of
this
country, the chance to live out their dreams in safety and peace.
That means a safe neighborhood, a quality education, and a secure
high-paying job.
This is how we will rebuild our future.
This is how We Will Make America Great Again – For Everyone.
Thank you.
Donald
J. Trump for President
PENCE STATEMENT ON TRUMP’S NEW SCHOOL CHOICE POLICIES
GOV. PENCE:“A
Bold Set Of Policies That Will Increase Accountability And Lead To
Better Results For Our Nation’s Children…”
“The
school choice proposals unveiled today by Mr. Trump are a bold set of
policies that will increase accountability and lead to better results
for our nation’s children. These policies prove once again that Mr.
Trump is the only person running for president who has the leadership
required to Make America Great Again!” – Gov. Mike
Pence
__________________
New School Choice Policies Unveiled Today By Donald J.
Trump:
PROPOSAL:
Mr. Trump’s first budget will immediately add an additional federal
investment of $20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by
reprioritizing existing federal dollars. Specifically, Mr. Trump’s plan
will use $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block
grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty. Individual
states will be given the option as to how these funds will be used.
PROPOSAL:
As President, Mr. Trump will establish the national goal of providing
school choice to every American child living in poverty. That means
that we want every disadvantaged child to be able to choose the local
public, private, charter or magnet school that is best for them and
their family. Each state will develop its own formula, but the dollars
should follow the student.
PROPOSAL:
To achieve this long-term goal of school choice, Mr. Trump make this a
shared national mission – to bring hope to every child in every city in
this land. Mr. Trump will use the pulpit of the presidency to campaign
for this in all 50 states and will call upon the American people to
elect officials at the city, state and federal level who support school
choice.
PROPOSAL:
Mr. Trump will also support merit-pay for teachers, so that great
teachers are rewarded instead of the failed tenure system that
currently exists, which rewards bad teachers and punishes good ones.
Hillary
for
America
HFA Statement in Response to Trump’s Education Speech Today in
Cleveland
In
response to Trump’s dangerous education proposals announced during his
speech today in Cleveland, HFA Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris
offered the following statement:
"It's no surprise that
Donald Trump—whose only experience when it comes to education is his
fraudulent 'Trump University'—offered education policies that would
prove disastrous for our public schools, our educators, and most
importantly, our kids. Let's be clear: Trump's proposal to apparently
gut nearly
30
percent
of the federal education budget and turn it into private school
vouchers would decimate public schools across America and deprive our
most vulnerable students of the education they deserve.
"Hillary
Clinton believes that the public school system is one of the pillars of
our democracy. As president she will fight to strengthen our public
schools to ensure every student receives a world-class education,
regardless of their ZIP code."
Donald Trump's proposal, explained:
TRUMP:
"[U]se $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a
block
grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty."
EXPLAINER: A more extreme
version of past Republican
proposals,
Trump's
plan
would apparently eliminate the targeting of federal
dollars to schools and districts with the highest concentrations of
low-income students. Instead, he would turn over all
$15.4
billion in
Title I funding to states, and allow money to follow students outside
of the public school system to private or parochial schools.
- Trump's proposal could strip
funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million
children. By allowing funding to leave America's 56,000
Title I schools, Trump's proposal will put crucial funding at risk for
nearly 21
million American students.
- Trump's
proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding
from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America. Trump's
proposal
would serve no-where near 11 million students. The average
cost of a K-12 private school is $13,640
per student, per year. Since the vast
majority
of states
do not support private school vouchers, Trump's proposal would have to
carry the full cost of attendance. As a result, Trump's proposal might
only serve 1.4 million students, while taking away funding that serves
America's low-income schools.
- Trump's
proposal could have
a devastating impact on student achievement. Research shows
that students who attend schools using vouchers often
do
worse than those who stayed in their neighborhood public
schools.
- To
fund his $20 billion voucher program, Trump would have to cut all Title
I funding and $5 billion dollars in additional federal education
programs. Trump would need to "repurpose" roughly $5 billion in
annual education funding which currently supports programming such as
preschool, Pell grants, and crucial resources to help low income
students, students with disabilities, and English-language
learners.
###
For Immediate Release, September 8,
2016
American
Federation of Teachers
AFT Leaders on Donald Trump’s Education Speech
WASHINGTON—Following
Donald Trump’s education speech in Cleveland, American Federation of
Teachers leaders released the following statements.
Randi Weingarten, AFT president:
“On
yet another issue, Donald Trump hasn’t done his homework. The more
you
hear Trump talk about the issues, the more profoundly clear it becomes
that he is completely unfit to be president.
“Today’s speech on
education repeats the same flawed ideology anti-public education
zealots have been shilling for years. As far as we can tell, Trump
never bothered talking to educators to find out what support they need
in order to give every kid a great education.
“Instead, he shows
his usual obeisance to the idea of making public education a market
rather than a public trust, to blaming rather than respecting
educators, and to ideas that have failed to help children
everywhere
they’ve been tried but instead, in their wake, have hurt kids by
leaving public schools destabilized and their budgets drained.
“Trump’s
got no research or evidence to back up his ideology—it’s just one more
sound bite from a reality TV star turned presidential nominee. In fact,
all the available evidence shows his ideas will only destabilize public
schools and hurt kids; just this summer, a bipartisan 18-month study
from the National Conference of State Legislatures found that the
policies Trump is trying to sell America are the opposite of how
high-performing nations build excellent schools.
“None of this
comes as a surprise: Donald Trump has never shown a commitment to
finding solutions or helping our schools serve students. In the
years I
spent working in New York City, I never once saw him at a civic event,
never saw him engaged in an effort to lift up public education. Now he
wants to hand our public schools over to private businesses so they can
make a profit—no surprise, from a man whose idea of education can best
be summed up in Trump University, a fraudulent enterprise built to rip
off hardworking students. As far as I’m concerned, his ideas on
public
education don’t earn a passing grade.”
Melissa Cropper, Ohio Federation of Teachers president:
“In
Ohio, we’ve seen more than enough of the ‘solutions’ Donald Trump is
selling, but we’re not buying. Unregulated, unaccountable for-profit
charter schools—like the one Trump is visiting today—have destabilized
our public districts, defrauded taxpayers, and left our kids and
educators worse off, not better.
“Ohio doesn’t need more
snake-oil salesmen to come in and try to sell solutions that don’t
solve anything. If Trump wants to discuss real solutions—like how we
can hold charters to high standards and ensure they’re serving our
kids, how we can reinvest in our neighborhood schools, and how we can
return the joy of teaching and learning to our classrooms—I’m ready and
willing to have that conversation. But the last thing we need is
another billionaire who thinks he knows more about education than the
people who spend every day working to give our kids a fair shot.”
David Quolke, Cleveland Federation of Teachers president:
“Earlier
this week, we were excited when we heard Trump planned to visit a
Cleveland charter school that recently won union representation. We
thought maybe he’d have a conversation with the educators and students
about what’s really needed—and that our members there could explain to
him why they chose to organize and form a union, and how that’s given
them a voice to advocate for themselves and their students.
“Sadly,
he cancelled that visit and rescheduled at a for-profit chain run by an
out-of-state investment firm. I can’t help but wonder if he found out
the educators at the first school were unionized and was too scared to
face questions from people who chose to join a union. Since he’s fought
tooth and nail to keep his own employees from forming a union, it
wouldn’t surprise me.
“Cleveland’s educators have a long history
of proud unionism, and our voice has helped win resources and supports
to give students a fair chance. I hope that, next time he visits,
Donald Trump will visit our traditional public schools and talk to
educators about what’s really needed to give kids the education they
deserve.”
National
Education
Association
Donald Trump is ‘clueless about what
works’ for students, public education
Trump doubles down
on failed education policies at failing, for-profit charter school
CLEVELAND - September 08, 2016 - With just weeks to go until
Election Day, voters have been
frustrated with Donald Trump’s failure to provide detailed plans on
major issues such as education, the economy and foreign policy. Trump
today visited a for-profit charter school in Cleveland to talk
education.
“Donald Trump isn’t serious about doing what’s best for our
students, and he’s clueless about what works. His silver bullet
approach does nothing to help the most-vulnerable students and ignores
glaring opportunity gaps while taking away money from public schools to
fill private-sector coffers. No matter what you call it, vouchers take
dollars away from our public schools to fund private schools at
taxpayers’ expense with little to no regard for our students,” said NEA
President
Lily Eskelsen García.”
“Today we saw Donald Trump desperately throw a bunch of failed
education policies against a wall to see if any of them would stick. In
contrast, Hillary Clinton believes a child’s chance of success should
not depend on living in the right ZIP code. And she is fully committed
to supporting educators and to ensuring that they not only we have a
partner in the White House but that we also have a seat at the table,”
added Eskelsen García.
Decades of research have found that vouchers fail to improve student
achievement in any impactful way, do not help the students most in need
and ignore the real opportunity gaps that exist in public schools. And
the backdrop of a failing for-profit charter school for today’s
campaign stop shows just how clueless and out-of-touch Trump is from
what kids need to succeed.
“Donald Trump’s campaign has been smoke-and-mirrors with no
substance,” said Becky Higgins, a first-grade teacher serving as
president of the Ohio Education Association. “Donald Trump has no
understanding of what kids need to succeed in school or in life. He’s
only concerned with his bottom line.”
A recent study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at
Stanford University found that charter schools fail at higher rates
than they succeed. On the Ohio state report card, more charter schools
received F grades than As, Bs and Cs combined. Last year, more than $500 million in state
aid was sent to charter schools
that performed the same or worse than the local school district from
which students transferred, according to KnowYourCharter.com.
Trump’s lack of a real education plan isn’t the only thing that
concerns educators in this highly unusual election. With his divisive
campaign, Trump has taken hate mainstream.
“We teach our students to view the president as a role model, but
when Donald Trump promotes a campaign built on racism, sexism and
xenophobia, he’s no role model I would want for my students or my
family,” said Dan Greenberg, a high school English teacher in Sylvania,
Ohio. “It doesn’t matter who you are — Democrat, Republican, or
Independent — we have to vote our conscience over political party.
Donald Trump is not fit to be Commander-in-Chief.”
In the last days of Election 2016, Trump’s attempt to “soften” his
tone can’t change how his campaign has been built on racist prejudice
and paranoia.
“We’ve seen behavior from Donald Trump that we would never accept in
a classroom,” added Eskelsen García who was the 1989 Utah Teacher of
the Year before being elected president of the 3 million-member National Education Association.
“We teach children to reject prejudice and stereotypes like the ones
Donald Trump embraces every time he hurls racial slurs, insults
immigrants and women, and talks about banning Muslims from entering our
country. We need a president who stands up to bullies — not one who
embraces their tactics.”
Follow us on twitter at @NEAmedia
Keep up with the conversation at
#StrongPublicSchools
# # #