Rep. Jamaal Bowman Unveils Green New Deal for Public Schools - The Groundbreaking Legislation will Invest $1.43 trillion over 10 years to Revitalize our Public School System While Combating the Climate Crisis

 

With Mayor Bill de Blasio, Public schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter, State Senator Jamaal Bailey, Councilman Kevin Riley, school staff, parents, and students, Congressman Jamal Bowman introduced his new green deal for public schools. This New Green Deal for Public Schools will be broken down in four ways over ten years to total $1.43 Trillion dollars. 

$446 billion dollars in Climate Control Facility Grants and $40 billion dollars for a Climate Change Resiliency Program. This will fund healthy green retrofits for the highest need third of schools, as measured by the CDC Social Vulnerability Index. There will be no or low cost interest loans for the rest of the public schools. 

$250 Billion in Resource Block Grants for staffing increases, expanded social service programming at high needs schools. This will fund the hiring and training of hundreds of thousands additional staff at all levels, and come up with a curriculum to move towards the 'whole child' approach in public schools including after school programs.

$100 million for an Educational Equity Planning Grants Program, to conduct community outreach to identify the historic and current sources of educational disparities within the region, to create a regional education equity plan to address these disparities.

$695 Billion over ten years for Title 1 and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) increases which will quadruple Title 1 funding to reach $66 billion annually to support schools and districts with students living in poverty, and to increase IDEA Part B funding to reach 33 Billion annually to support students with disabilities.

Mayor de Blasio gave a ringing endorsement to Congressman Bowman's plan saying, "This is an important day for our children in public school, and just what was needed to level the playing field for all children. Mayor de Blasio finished by saying this will complement the new Universal Mosaic Curriculum with a focus on literacy that will be rolled out in September when students return to schools finally. 

Original co-sponsors of the legislation are Democratic Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Nanette Diaz Barragan (CA), Cori Bush (MO), Yvette Clark (NY), Danny K. Davis (IL), Adriano Espaillat (NY), Jesus G. "Chuy" Garcia (ILL), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Ro Khanna (CA), Barbara Lee (CA), Andy Levine (MI), Carolyn Maloney (NY), Elanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Thomas Suozzi (NY), Mark Takano (CA), Bernie Thompson (MS), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Nydia Velazquez (NY), Juan Vargas (CA), and Frederica Wilson (FL).

Mayor Bill de Blasio thanks Congressman Bowman for this legislation that will bring the public school system into the 21st and 22nd centuries. 

State Senator Jamaal Bailey, who represents the area where the press conference was held, Edenwald, thanked Congressman Bowman not only as a state legislator, but also as a parent of a child in the New York City Public School System.