Education/Children's Issues
Mission: To advocate for quality public education essential to America’s competitive, democratic society and to educate WNDC members on reforms needed to restructure the nation’s public schools to provide equality of opportunity. To study conditions of American children living in poverty and the absence of health insurance protection for many of those children, and to act on findings as needed.
Public Policy Positions:
The Education & Children’s Issues Task Force supports:
- Allowing all families to choose among available publicly supported schools.
- Revision of No Child Left Behind legislation, maintaining its purposes of accountability and closing the achievement gaps among income levels; but with measurements other than high stakes testing; with incentives rather than punitive sanctions for “failing”schools; and full funding for all mandates.
- Expansion of and full funding for early childhood education and programs to enhance readiness to start school, including affordable high-quality childcare, and after school programs for all school age children
- Facilitating recruitment, retention, and support for qualified teachers, particularly for underserved schools, with competitive compensation
- Programs that encourage students to enter teaching careers, with financial support for their training
- Community-wide plans to reduce drugs and violence in schools
- Provision for foreign languages, arts, music, physical education, and vocational education as essential components of the curriculum
- Strengthening instruction in math and science
- Provision of comprehensive social services to children and their families at school sites, including counseling, health care, and education in parenting
- Inclusion of all children in health insurance coverage
- Access to and experience with up-to-date technologies as an integral part of all children’s school experiences.
- Well-maintained school facilities in all neighborhoods.
- Effective special education programs for children with special needs, taking into account both the needs of the individual student and the general population of the school.
