Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

"Education transformed my life and opened doors for me I never thought possible. Now, I want my two young children -- and all children -- to get the education they need to achieve their dreams, just like I did as a young girl whose parents brought her to this country with nothing more than high hopes, a strong work ethic, and a belief in the American dream." -- Stephanie Murphy

As someone whose family immigrated to this country when she was only one year old, public education was the reason Stephanie was able to succeed. Her parents worked blue collar jobs during the day and cleaned office buildings at night so that their children could have a better life. As a result, Stephanie and her brother are the first generation in their family to graduate from college, which they paid through scholarships, Pell Grants and student loans.

Now, as a mother of two young children, Stephanie is very passionate about ensuring every child has access to a quality education in safe, thriving, state-of-the-art schools with smaller class sizes, better summer and after-school programs, and more technology in the classroom. And, she will push for more programs that help schools combat bullying.

Stephanie is a strong proponent of early childhood education and will build bipartisan efforts to ensure every child in America has a strong start and more opportunities. Studies show that investments in early childhood education save communities money in the long term, reducing homelessness, hunger, poverty and crime. Stephanie will fight for more investments in early childhood education, including Head Start and pre-kindergarten.

With preschool children facing lock-downs to deal with potential shooters and innocent people fearing another mass shooting like the one here in Orlando, Stephanie is fed up with politicians putting politics ahead of solutions. That's why she will advocate for commonsense gun security laws like universal background checks and banning people on the no-fly, terrorist watch list from purchasing weapons.

Stephanie will also continue to push for a greater emphasis on STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) and more public-private partnerships to ease the transition from school to college to the workplace, including more support for career and technical schools.

You can't have good schools without good teachers, which is why Stephanie wants to support teachers with the tools, training and resources they need to adapt to a rapidly-changing global economy. She'll push for commonsense reforms that free educators from teaching to tests and encourage more innovative approaches to learning.

Finally, college debt is way too high and it is crushing the futures of too many young people. Stephanie will aggressively work to lower student loan interest rates, increase Pell Grant funding and make student loans more flexible, including the ability to renegotiate your loan when interest rates fall.

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