Clinton on Education

I went to Hillary Clinton's web site to see where she stands on education issues. A visit to her site is very instructive in itself. She has detailed sets of policy plans on innumerable topics. These are specific, include references, and are interwoven into a coherent whole. It is clearly the work of a candidate and campaign that has thought deeply about national imperatives and human needs and has paid attention to the specifics of what it would take to effectuate constructive change.

Clinton has seen the research on early childhood education and wants to give it a boost. She would make preschool available for all 4-year-olds in America, double the Head Start budget, and cap any family's child care at 10% of their family earnings, to be guaranteed by subsidies or tax credits. The integrated nature of her planning is evident here, as the funding would come from specific tax reforms detailed in her Tax section, including instituting the "Buffet Rule" (millionaires have to pay a minimum 30% tax rate), closing the carried interest and offshore loopholes and assessing a Wall Street transactions tax.

Among her plans for K-12 education are a program to double the Build America Bonds program to reconstruct decaying schools, to give federal help for computer literacy, recognizing that half a million computer jobs are currently unfilled, and a program to "elevate the teaching profession" to attract and better train the highest caliber of teachers, including through higher pay. There would be an extensive expansion of career technical education for those going into blue-collar trades.

Her higher education plans show she has a keen understanding of what is holding many people back from achieving to their potential. Hillary proposes a $1500 scholarship for child care expenses for college students who are parents. Her plan would make all community colleges tuition free, public 4-year colleges tuition free immediately for all families earning less than $85,000 and for all families earning less than $125,000 within four years. She would allow current student debts to be refinanced at current interest rates, helping 25 million people. Student loan costs would be capped at 10% of a person's income, and would be erased after 20 years, after 10 years if the graduate took a public interest job. She would fund expanded child care at universities to handle an additional 250,000 children, making it possible for more young parents to attend college.

In general, Mrs. Clinton's education policy approach is to make learning more universal and accessible for all our people. She would recycle some of the revenues more recently given in tax breaks into providing greater opportunities for more Americans to get the skills they and the nation need to compete in the contemporary world.