What We Know About Kamala Harris’ K-12 Record, and Other Potential Biden Replacements
President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he’s dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the Democratic ticket.
As a result, the future of the Democrats’ K-12 policy agenda will lie in the hands of his replacement.
The decision followed weeks of Democratic hand-wringing over Biden’s viability and his potential to drag down the prospects of other Democrats across the nation.
While Biden has endorsed Harris, his replacement will be chosen officially at the Democratic National Convention, which starts on Aug. 19 in Chicago. Some top Democrats have started calling for the party to unite around Harris. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, tweeted Sunday that the union’s executive council has voted to endorse Harris.
But in addition to Harris, a number of other Democrats—mainly governors—have been floated as potential replacements for the president.
The official nominee will help determine the party’s education policy priorities. They aren’t likely to stray far from Biden’s education agenda, which has been dominated by efforts that have been held up in courts to forgive student loan debt and expand protections for LGBTQ+ students and school staff through a rewrite of rules for Title IX, the nation’s landmark sex discrimination law.
Unlike some of his predecessors, Biden hasn’t pursued an aggressive education policy agenda before Congress or emphasized a particular set of school improvements. But he has secured funding increases for key federal programs including Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
On the Republican side, the party has proposed a platform that calls for eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, defunding schools that teach “critical race theory” or “gender ideology,” and universal private school choice.
Here’s what we know about Vice President Harris’ stance on education, along with other potential replacements, some of whom quickly endorsed her, potentially positioning themselves as running mates.
Vice President Kamala Harris
Before becoming vice president, Harris was a senator representing California and ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary election. In her 2020 campaign, she advocated for universal preschool and free college and called for a $13,500 raise for every teacher by the end of her first term. She also used speeches during her campaign to criticize conservative politicians for “attacking” public schools and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a 2020 primary debate, Harris sparred with Biden over school segregation, criticizing the now-president for his opposition in the 1970s to busing as a strategy to desegregate schools.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to schools every day,” Harris said. “And that little girl was me.”
As senator, Harris cosponsored the Strength in Diversity Act, which would promote school diversity initiatives, including busing. The bill stalled in the Senate.
During her time as senator, from 2017 to 2021, Harris sponsored four bills related to education, none of which passed. (Republicans controlled the Senate during her tenure, and Donald Trump was president.)
Two were directly related to K-12 schools. The Family Friendly Schools Act would have directed the Education Department to provide grants to local school districts to support aligning the school day with family work schedules and building stronger relationships between families and school districts.
The 21st Century STEM for Girls and Underrepresented Minorities Act would have directed the Education Department to provide funding for school districts to cover the costs of STEM education activities for girls and children from racial minorities.
Before her time in the Senate, Harris pushed for harsher consequences for parents whose children weren’t attending school. As the San Francisco district attorney, she threatened parents with court action if their children missed too much school. Later, as California’s attorney general, Harris pushed for a 2011 state law that allowed district attorneys to charge parents with a misdemeanor if their child missed 10 percent of the school year.
She has since said she regrets championing that law and said she wouldn’t support such a law on the federal level.
“My regret is that I have now heard stories where in some jurisdictions DAs have criminalized the parents,” Harris said in a 2019 Pod Save America interview. “I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything I did could have led to that. That certainly wasn’t the intention.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Shapiro, a first-term governor in a key swing state, recently negotiated a 2024-25 budget with a K-12 funding increase of over $1 billion. The package also includes money universal free breakfast for the state’s 1.7 million students, according to the governor’s website.
Within a few hours of Biden’s announcement, Shapiro endorsed Harris, saying on X that “the best path forward for the Democratic Party is to quickly unite” around the vice president. Shapiro, as governor of a crucial battleground state, is seen as a contender to be Harris’ running mate should she secure the nomination.
Hanging over Shapiro’s time as governor has been a judge’s landmark February 2023 ruling that the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional, failing to adequately fund the state’s schools. Education advocates have said the funding increases so far fall short of what the legal ruling requires.
Shapiro stands out among Democrats in his support for school choice, traditionally a Republican policy priority.
Last summer, the Pennsylvania governor initially supported a $100 million voucher program that would help parents pay for private school. He backed down amid pressure from Democrats in the state’s House of Representatives, but maintains his support for a voucher program.
The new budget Shapiro signed increases funding for the state’s limited tax-credit scholarship programs, through which businesses can receive tax credits for funding private school scholarships.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
The second-term governor of a key swing state pushed back on calls for Biden to drop out, and said Sunday that her “job in this will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump.” Still, many in Democratic circles have suggested she would be a strong replacement nominee.
As governor, Whitmer signed a $24.3 billion education budget in 2023 that increased per-pupil funding by 5 percent and allocated extra funding for economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students with disabilities, according to Bridge Michigan, a local nonprofit news organization.
In December 2023, Whitmer also launched a new state Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, known as MiLEAP, which is tasked with improving outcomes for students in preschool through college. The department has goals of ensuring every child is ready for kindergarten, every student has the chance to earn a skill certificate or degree after high school, and that school districts can partner with outside organizations so students have more opportunities for learning outside the classroom, according to the governor’s website.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker
Pritzker, another second-term governor, signed a 2023 state budget that increased K-12 funding by more than $1 billion. He’s also signed laws to raise minimum teacher salaries and require that school districts implement career exploration and development programs for students in grades 6-12.
In 2021, Pritzker signed a sweeping education law that requires schools to better prepare students in computer literacy, laboratory science, and foreign languages, and expands required Black history curriculum to include lessons on the conditions leading to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. The law also establishes and Inclusive American History Commission, a Professional Review Panel, and a Whole Child Task Force to examine ways to make schools more equitable and improve students’ overall well-being.
In another move pushing back against conservative education politics, Pritzker signed a bill last year that penalizes libraries that ban books.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Newsom, in his second term leading the nation’s largest state, has made a name for himself on the national stage as the Democrats’ answer to high-profile conservative politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he faced in a televised debate last November. During the debate, Newsom criticized DeSantis for passing policies that he says harm LGBTQ+ students and students of color.
Like Gov. Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Newsom didn’t wait long to endorse Vice President Harris, saying on X that “no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump’s dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President.” As a fellow Californian, Newsom is seen as less likely to be a running mate for Harris.
As governor, Newsom aggressively pushed back against conservative school board politics. He’s gone after school districts for passing policies to reject curriculum about LGBTQ+ history, signed an executive order to expand career and technical education, and negotiated K-12 budget increases with teachers’ unions.
Just this month, Newsom signed a first-of-its-kind law that prohibits schools from requiring educators to tell parents if a student requests to go by a different name or pronouns at school—a direct rebuke to laws passed in a number of Republican-led states that require such disclosure. Already, a southern California school board that passed a policy requiring such notifications has sued Newsom over the new law.
Libby Stanford is a reporter for Education Week.
What We Know About Kamala Harris' K-12 Record, and Other Potential Biden Replacements (edweek.org)