Education
Every kid deserves
a great school.
America's school funding is tied to property taxes. That means kids in wealthy neighborhoods get more resources, better teachers, and better outcomes - while kids in poor neighborhoods get less. This is not accidental. And it is not acceptable.
What's Happening Now
The funding gap is a civil rights crisis.
The education crisis is not inevitable. It is the product of four decades of deliberate policy choices.
Average per-pupil funding gap between the richest and poorest school districts - kids in the same state learning under radically different conditions
Total outstanding student loan debt - 44 million borrowers, average $30,000+ at graduation from a four-year public university
Unfilled teacher positions nationally, driven by low pay, book bans, and political attacks that are accelerating an exodus from the profession
Book challenges filed in a single school year - a record, driven by organized campaigns targeting LGBTQ+ content and accurate history
Why This Happened
The education crisis was engineered, not inevitable.
Since the 1980s, a coordinated political movement has worked to defund, destabilize, and ultimately dismantle public education. The strategy is not secret: privatize where possible, defund where privatization is not yet viable, and suppress the civic education that teaches people how to recognize what is happening. Voucher programs drain money from public schools. State legislatures have cut higher education funding steadily for forty years, shifting costs onto students through tuition - and tuition has increased 1,200 percent since 1980, while general inflation ran 236 percent.
Project 2025 took a sledgehammer to what remained. Its blueprint called for the outright elimination of the Department of Education, the conversion of Title I and IDEA funding into block grants (a mechanism for cutting and redirecting funds away from the most vulnerable students), and the expansion of voucher schemes that funnel public dollars to private and religious schools with no accountability for outcomes. More than 20 states passed "divisive concepts" laws creating legal jeopardy for teachers who teach accurate history or science. Book bans surged to historic highs. "Tip lines" were established to report teachers to school boards for classroom content.
The teacher shortage is not an accident either. Average teacher pay is approximately $65,000 - roughly $15,000 below comparable professions requiring similar education. More than half of teachers leave the profession within five years. When political attacks make every lesson on climate science or the Civil Rights Movement a potential career risk, talented people stop entering the profession. The students who pay the price are concentrated in the communities that can least afford it.
An educated, critically thinking citizenry is democracy's immune system. Project 2025 understood this and acted accordingly. Project 2029 acts accordingly too - in the opposite direction.
What Project 2025 Did to Education
- ● Proposed eliminating the Department of Education entirely - dissolving federal civil rights enforcement in schools and ending Title I funding for 26 million low-income students
- ● Rescinded Title IX protections for transgender students and weakened sexual assault response requirements
- ● Rescinded the Gainful Employment rule, allowing predatory for-profit colleges to keep accessing federal student aid regardless of their outcomes
- ● Dismantled the Office for Civil Rights - the agency that investigates discrimination in schools - through mass firings and eliminated most pending investigations
- ● Promoted Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs that bypass union wage standards and undermine registered apprenticeship quality
- ● Blocked student loan forgiveness for defrauded borrowers - including victims of ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, and other for-profit frauds - despite existing legal obligations to discharge those debts
The Plan
What Project 2029 proposes.
Based on Chapter 11 (Department of Education) of Project 2029. Specific legislation. Real timelines. Constitutional authority for every proposal.
Public School Funding Equity Act
End the property tax trap - guarantee a floor for every student
Establish a federal funding floor guaranteeing at least $15,000 per pupil per year in every public school in America, regardless of local property values. The current per-pupil funding gap between the richest and poorest districts averages $9,000 - in the same state, children receive radically different educations based solely on their zip code. Provide weighted funding for high-need students: special education (IDEA fully funded at the federal share Congress promised but never delivered), English language learners, and students in poverty. Tie Title I funding increases to state compliance with equity standards. Target a 75% reduction in the funding gap between richest and poorest districts within a decade.
Civic Education Excellence Act
Restore and expand civic learning - democracy requires informed citizens
Invest $5 billion annually in a national Civic Education Initiative: age-appropriate civic learning at every grade level, mock elections and student government, service learning requirements, and project-based civic engagement. Expand the iCivics platform and We the People constitutional competition nationwide. Develop voluntary national civic education standards in partnership with educators, historians, and civic organizations - standards that include media literacy, critical thinking, and accurate American history. Require the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to administer regular civics assessments with state-level reporting. Fund $2 billion annually for media literacy programs teaching students to identify misinformation, understand algorithmic content curation, and evaluate source credibility.
College for All Act
Free community college for every American - and affordable public university
Make community college tuition-free for all Americans regardless of income - covering full tuition, fees, and books. Create a federal-state partnership making public university free for families earning under $125,000 (federal government covers two-thirds of cost, states cover one-third, with states required to maintain current funding levels as a condition of receiving federal dollars). Provide means-tested stipends for living expenses for the lowest-income students. Estimated cost: $80 billion annually in federal funds - less than one percent of GDP for the most transformative investment in workforce and economic mobility available. Phase in over three years: community college free in Year 1, university free for families under $60,000 in Year 2, full implementation in Year 3.
Student Debt Relief and IBR Reform Act
Cancel the debt. Fix the system. Close the predator schools.
Cancel up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt for all borrowers earning under $125,000, with full cancellation for Pell Grant recipients and borrowers who attended for-profit colleges that engaged in deceptive practices. Simplify Income-Based Repayment into a single universal plan: 10% of discretionary income (income above 200% of the federal poverty line), with the government subsidizing any interest not covered by the payment so the principal never grows. Forgiveness after 20 years of payments for any employment, 10 years for public service - and no tax on the forgiven amount. Restore and fully enforce the Borrower Defense rule, providing automatic group discharges for ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, and Art Institutes students - as the law already requires. Permanently bar for-profit colleges with debt-to-earnings ratios above the Gainful Employment threshold from accessing federal student aid.
Teacher Investment and Academic Freedom Act
Pay teachers what they are worth. Protect them from political pressure.
Establish a federal $80,000 minimum teacher salary target: states that raise teacher salaries to $80,000 receive a 50% federal match on the cost of that increase, with priority funding for high-poverty schools. Currently, average teacher pay is approximately $65,000 - roughly $15,000 below comparable professions. Cancel student loans in full for teachers who commit 5 years to Title I schools, high-need subject areas (STEM, special education, bilingual), or shortage areas. Establish a $100 million Teacher Legal Defense Fund providing attorneys' fees to teachers facing discipline for teaching accurate history, science, or current events consistent with professional educational standards. Withhold federal education funds from districts that ban books based on the viewpoint of the content or the identity of the author - making book banning carry a real cost.
School Safety Transformation Act
Counselors, not cops. Restorative justice, not criminalization.
Condition federal education funding on removing School Resource Officers except where a documented security need exists and the community has affirmatively approved through a transparent process. Redirect SRO funding to school counselors (current national ratio: 1 counselor per 500+ students - the target is 1 per 250), social workers, and restorative justice staff. Fund $5 billion annually for school mental health programs. Establish federal restorative justice grants for evidence-based discipline alternatives: peer mediation, circle processes, and community conferencing. Require the Office for Civil Rights to automatically investigate school districts where Black students are suspended at rates more than twice the rate of white students - and currently, Black students are three times more likely to be suspended. End the school-to-prison pipeline by ending the criminalization of normal adolescent behavior.
Take Action
Take action on education.
Vote for Schools
School board elections, local levies, state legislature races - these directly fund your kids' schools and determine what teachers are allowed to teach.
Register to Vote →Demand Equity
Ask your federal representatives to support education funding equity legislation, free community college, and student debt cancellation.
Contact Your Rep →Print & Share
Download the education one-pager from Project 2029. Leave it at your library. Share it with a first-generation college student.
Get One-Pager →Read Chapter 11
The full Department of Education reform plan - every policy, legal citation, and implementation step from civic education to student debt.
Read the Plan →Share This
Help others understand what's at stake.