Bernie Sanders: Here's what has to change in South Carolina and the nation [View all]

[Uncle Joe]

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These dynamics have reached crisis levels in South Carolina, where public schools lag behind national averages in reading, writing and job preparedness. Many schools are racially segregated, and magnet and charter schools are drawing resources and high-performing students away. Meanwhile, amid cuts in funding for school programs, one in five children in South Carolina is going without meals.

This year, the situation has become an emergency. The start of school saw a 16 percent increase in unfilled teacher vacancies, and teacher pay was well below the national average. Adding insult to injury, under President Trump’s new budget, South Carolina would lose $28 million of grants to help high-poverty schools boost teacher salaries. Overall, South Carolina’s public education system would lose roughly $246 million under the Trump budget, denying 14,000 students access to after-school programs.

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What’s truly shameful is that last year, South Carolina spent $11,552 on average per student, while spending $21,756 on average per prison inmate – nearly twice as much. It makes absolutely no sense that Republican leaders in South Carolina, and other parts of the country, would invest more in keeping people in prison than in keeping them in school.

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I will also work to reform our broken criminal justice system. Right now, we are spending $80 billion a year to lock up 2.2 millions people, hundreds of thousands of whom have not been convicted of a crime and are solely in jail because they can't afford their bail. We are criminalizing poverty. And because of the historical legacy of racism in this country, we are disproportionately criminalizing people of color.

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https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/opinion/2019/04/18/bernie-sanders-heres-what-has-change-south-carolina-and-nation/3495182002/