HOUSTON (CN) – At a Democratic presidential forum in Houston on Friday, 10 candidates promised teachers’ union members more federal funding to transform the U.S. public education system with universal pre-kindergarten, teacher pay raises and more on-campus counselors to prevent school shootings.
Teachers across the country left their classrooms and went on strike in 2018 and early this year, fed up with low pay and underfunding that forces many to pay for their own school supplies.
The teachers adopted the slogan “Red for Ed” and wore red T-shirts on the picket lines as a show of solidarity.
Though most of those strikes ended with agreements from state lawmakers to raise teachers’ pay, the movement is still going strong, as 7,000 members of the National Education Association turned out Friday in red T-shirts to hear the candidates give quick spiels about their education plans.
The candidates took questions submitted by NEA members before the event. Several spoke from their own experiences as educators.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she knew in second grade she wanted to be a school teacher.
“I used to line my dollies up and teach them. I want you to know I was tough but fair,” she joked.
“I became a special needs teacher. I have lived my dream.” Warren, 70, also taught at Harvard Law School for several years before going into politics.
As president, she said she would implement a 2 cent per dollar tax on fortunes worth more than $50 million dollars, which would be levied against 75,000 of the top-earning U.S. families.
The tax would raise more than $1 trillion, Warren said, enough to pay for child care for every baby in this country from newborns to 5 year olds, universal pre-kindergarten for every 3-and-4-year-old child, and tuition-free technical school, community college and four-year college for everyone who wants a higher education.
“Plus we can cancel student loan debt for 95% of people,” she said.
Warren reiterated her earlier campaign promise to nominate an educator as secretary of education if elected president.
"Betsy DeVos need not apply," Warren said to cheers from the audience.
Julian Castro, former San Antonio mayor and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Barack Obama, said he worked for a semester as a substitute teacher in San Antonio in his early 20s. He said he taught classes with nearly 40 students.
“I thought that was against the law in Texas, but it was not,” he said of the large classes. “I remember going home every single day that semester and feeling like I had to take a five-hour nap, but I also liked the moments when I helped students understand something that wasn’t getting through,” he said.
Castro, 44, said the two San Antonio school districts he attended as a youth were 80-85% Hispanic, a stark example of how Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found school segregation unconstitutional, did not end the problem.
He said he wants to invest in “voluntary busing” programs in which willing minority students are bused to majority white schools. But Castro said he would also address the issue by investing in fair housing enforcement.
“Because too often families of color are turned down for housing because of the color of their skin” he said.