The United States funds its public schools primarily through local property taxes. This means that the quality of a child’s education is determined, more than almost any other factor, by the zip code they were born into. A child in a wealthy suburb attends a well-funded school with experienced teachers, modern facilities, and a full curriculum. A child three miles away in a low-income neighborhood attends an underfunded school with crumbling infrastructure, teacher vacancies, and programs that have been cut to the bone.
We know this. We have known it for decades. We have chosen, repeatedly, not to fix it.
The problems go beyond funding equity. Teacher pay in the United States is so low relative to other professions requiring comparable education that the country is experiencing a sustained teacher shortage that is getting worse, not better. Standardized testing regimes have narrowed the curriculum and driven experienced educators out of the profession. Student mental health needs have exploded while school counselor ratios remain inadequate. And the curriculum itself — what we teach, whose history we include, how we prepare young people for civic life — has become a political battlefield where book bans and ideological mandates replace educational judgment.
Higher education has become unaffordable for millions. Community colleges, which once served as an accessible on-ramp to the middle class, are chronically underfunded. Vocational and technical education has been systematically devalued despite overwhelming demand for the skills it produces.
Education is not a consumer product. It is the foundation of democracy and the prerequisite for everything else. What does an education system that treats it that way actually look like?
What does an education system built for every child look like? Submit your vision.