Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to address the shortcomings of America’s educational system by dissolving the government monopoly over it, which he claimed has left inner city youth adrift and stood in the way of their success.
Speaking to voters in Cleveland shortly after he met with teachers, students and their parents at a nearby charter school, Trump said 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’s time to break up that monopoly,” Trump said as he railed against increasing government involvement in education. “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,” he noted. “It’s simply a matter of putting students first, not the education bureaucracy.”
In a series of education proposals, Trump said his first budget proposal as president would earmark $20 billion of existing federal dollars for school choice, of which each state would be given an option to determine how the funds are used.
“Each state will develop its own formula, but the dollars should follow the student,” he said.
If elected, Trump said he would “use the pulpit of the presidency” to campaign for school choice across the country, promising to visit all 50 states where he would urge local, state and federal lawmakers to join him in making it a “shared national mission.”
Additionally, the GOP hopeful said he would back merit pay for teachers over the “failed tenure system that currently exists.”
“They’re protecting a lot of people that have a lot of really high-paying jobs and they’re not doing the jobs like Deborah, I can tell you,” he said, identifying a teacher he had met earlier Thursday.
“Our campaign represents the long-awaited chance to break with the bitter failures of the past and to embrace a new and strong American future,” Trump told the crowd. “There’s no failed policy more in need of change than our government-run education monopoly and you know that’s exactly what it is.”
