Biden And Sanders Announce Education Unity Task Force

Today, former Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced six Unity Task Forces to cover the issues of education, climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, health care, and immigration. These task forces will advise the Democratic National Committee Platform and Biden himself and were put together with former 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

The education task force is co-chaired by Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Heather Gautney, Ph.D. Fudge serves on the House Committee on Education and Labor and is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Dr. Gautney is a professor at Fordham University and was a senior policy advisor to Sanders’s presidential campaign. She previously served as an advisor in Sanders’s Senate office.

The other members of the task force are:

• Alejandro Adler, Ph.D. — a professor at Columbia University who focuses on student well-being.
• Lily Eskelsen Garcia — president of the influential teachers’ union, the National Education Association.
• Maggie Thompson — former executive director of Generation Progress, who focuses on student debt.
• Christina Vilsack — a librarian, a literacy advocate, and former First Lady of Iowa.
• Randi Weingarten — president of the influential teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers.
• Hirokazu Yoshikawa — a professor at New York University who studies the impact of policy on immigration, early childhood, and poverty reduction on children’s development.

Biden has already announced a series of education policy proposals, including adopting a version of free college put forth by Sanders. This group of advisors will play an important role in shaping the Democratic platform and any new education policies in the coming months. Their role is likely to only be made more important by the fallout from the coronavirus.