Donald Trump Backs Merit Pay, Funds for School Choice
by Alyson Klein
Education Week
September 13, 2016
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is pledging that, if elected, he’d be the “nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice” and would offer states the chance to use $20 billion in federal money to create vouchers allowing children in poverty to attend the public, charter, or private school of their choice.
In a speech at a charter school in Cleveland, he also said he’s a supporter of merit pay for teachers—a signature policy of both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s administrations—although he did not explain how he hopes to further the cause, other than rhetorically taking aim at tenure.
“There is no policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly,” Trump said. “The Democratic Party has trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth” in struggling schools.
“We want every inner-city child in America to have the freedom to attend any school,” he said.
Trump said that the $20 billion in federal funds could be combined with more than $100 billion in state and local money to create vouchers of up to $12,000 annually for the nation’s poorest kids.
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