We once had a shared policy thesis about public education. What happened? A glance at the president’s recent budget proposal, now coined “One Big Beautifull Bill” is the clearest indicator that we’ve lost our shared thesis when it comes to public education — a $12.4 billion cut to public education, with the largest share of the cut being to K-12 schools.
For more than 15 years, educational opportunity — ensuring success for all students — was a bipartisan policy priority, embraced by both Republican and Democratic administrations. We believed, together, that public education was a gateway to the American Dream, the most powerful tool for ensuring every child had a fair shot. We also understood that strong public schools were America’s most strategic financial and policy investment to ensure a strong democracy for generations.
But somewhere along the way, that consensus unraveled. What happened?
For 16 years, two presidents from opposing political parties made public education a national priority. Although their approaches differed — and were often debated — what remained clear was a shared, bipartisan commitment to ensuring that every child had access to a quality education.
President George W. Bush, with bipartisan support, ushered in one of the most consequential eras of federal engagement in K-12 education with the No Child Left Behind Act. The law aimed to raise academic achievement and increase accountability, ensuring that no student — regardless of race, income or background — was overlooked.
The nation saw modest academic gains, largely propelled by strict accountability measures and, at times, efforts to “game” the system in the name of closing achievement gaps. Under No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress framework, schools faced rigorous expectations for student performance in reading and math. Educators from that era will recall the unrelenting pressure — and real consequences — attached to those benchmarks.
While No Child Left Behind Act remains controversial — often criticized as an underfunded federal mandate — its core mission of holding schools accountable for every child’s success was an important step forward. Like many, I believe in accountability, but it must be paired with adequate resources and support.
More than a decade later, with bipartisan support, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, shifting much of the authority back to states while preserving the foundational commitment that every child must learn to read, write and count and also aiming to provide the resources needed to carry out the rigorous expectations once mutually agreed upon by Republicans and Democrats alike. In fact, no major piece of education has cleared Congress without bipartisan support.
Today, however, that bipartisan ethos has faded. The once-powerful belief that public education is the great equalizer began to erode. In recent years, we’ve witnessed a troubling trend: public education is under attack. From banning books to political efforts aimed at controlling curriculum decisions, the shared national thesis — that public education serves both our democracy and our children — has unraveled.
Further, President Joe Biden’s administration spent four years fighting efforts to undermine decades of progress from Bush to Obama, rather than continuing the legacy of a bold vision for public education. Many of those efforts had just taken place four years prior during the first Trump administration.
We must ask ourselves: when did we stop believing that every child, in every zip code, deserves access to a great public education? It seems that belief began to unravel with the latest presidential elections. As much as I want to deny that reality, it is ours to confront. So the question now becomes: how do we shift the nation’s focus back — back to a clear, unapologetic commitment to ensuring that no student, regardless of race, income or geography, is denied a high-quality education?
We fight back by holding Congress accountable — and by demanding a renewed commitment to educational equity and excellence for all students. That means restoring the nation’s focus on true educational accountability: ensuring that every child, regardless of race, background or zip code, can read, write and count proficiently. That opportunity has been in waiting — Congress still needs to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was last reauthorized in 2015.
While policy wonks hash out and await an opportunity to reauthorize the existing law, Congress can begin with resisting political overreach into classrooms and holding the Trump administration accountable for carrying forward the existing protections denying federal over-reach over curriculum decisions — particularly efforts to censor books and control curriculum for ideological gain.
It means preserving and expanding investments in teacher preparation programs, especially those designed to recruit and support a diverse, high-quality educator workforce. It also requires a firm recommitment to Title I funding in the latest budget proposals, the federal government’s primary tool for ensuring that students in under-resourced communities are not short-changed due to disparities in state and local funding.
Most importantly, it requires Congress to put an end to the executive branch’s ongoing attacks on public education by rejecting any budget or policy proposal that fails to strengthen, support and invest in our nation’s public schools. For 16 years, that was our shared thesis — a bipartisan belief that public education is essential not only to individual opportunity but to the health of our democracy.
Today, I refuse to believe that the American people will allow a handful of detractors to dismantle that vision. We know the promise public education holds — not just for improving life outcomes, but for advancing the ideals of democratic participation. It’s time to reclaim that shared thesis. Perhaps we can begin to reclaim that shared thesis when Congress decides to take up re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Phelton Moss is an assistant professor of educational leadership in the school of education and an affiliate faculty member in the Wilder School of Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also a former congressional staffer, school principal and teacher.
