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Dear neighbor, 

It’s time for a revolution in public education. I’m proud to announce that we are introducing the Green New Deal for Public Schools, which invests $1.43 trillion over 10 years to revitalize our school system while combating the climate crisis. 

The bill has already been co-sponsored by 29 of my colleagues in Congress. Yesterday, I hosted a press conference in Edenwald to celebrate this bill and to stand with leaders, students and collaborators in our community who make our work possible. To watch a recording of the press conference click here.  

The Green New Deal for Public Schools will allow us to invest in our public school infrastructure on an unprecedented level. We will address historical harms and inequities by focusing support on high-need schools and hiring and training hundreds of thousands of additional educators and support staff. If enacted, the legislation would fund 1.3 million jobs per year and eliminate 78 million metric tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road.

The climate crisis has worsened as corporations continue to profit at the expense of everyone else, leaving our youth, schools and communities to suffer the impacts of that greed. For decades, our schools have experienced disinvestment, redlining, and cycles of poverty and trauma, leaving our buildings falling apart and without the resources they need for our kids to thrive. Too many students can tell you about experiencing mold, broken ceilings, and fountains that you cannot drink out of in the hallways. 

Investing in our schools would allow us to nurture and care for our young people and unlock their brilliance. The Green New Deal for Public Schools proposes $1.43 trillion in new funding over 10 years, including the following distribution of resources:

• $446 billion in Climate Capital Facilities Grants and $40 billion for a Climate Change Resiliency Program

• Climate Capital Facilities Grants will fully fund healthy green retrofits for the highest-need third of schools, as measured by the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, and offer a mix of grant funding and no- or low-interest loans for the middle and top thirds. Grants will cover two-thirds and one-third of retrofit costs for these schools, respectively. 

• $250 billion in Resource Block Grants

• Resource Block Grants will fund staffing increases, expanded social service programming, and curriculum development at high-need schools. The program will allow Local Educational Agencies across the country to hire and train hundreds of thousands of additional educators and support staff, including paraprofessionals, school psychologists and counselors, and learning specialists. The funds may also be used to design locally-rooted curricula; adopt trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and restorative justice practices, to move towards a “whole child” approach to public education; and partner with community organizations to offer a range of services to schools and surrounding neighborhoods, such as after-school programs. 

• $100 million for an Educational Equity Planning Grants Pilot Program

• Educational Equity Planning Grants will encourage neighboring Local Education Agencies to form regional consortia, which will receive funding to conduct extensive community outreach, identify the historical and current sources of educational disparities within the region, and create and implement a Regional Education Equity Plan to address those disparities. This pilot program is modeled on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants, which are designed to encourage equitable, locally-driven economic development. 

• $695 billion over 10 years for Title I and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) increases

• This bill proposes quadrupling Title I funding to reach $66 billion annually to support schools and districts with students living in poverty, as well as increasing funding for IDEA Part B to reach $33 billion annually to support students with disabilities.

In the district specifically, this bill would make massive investments in every high-need school in NY-16, including the campus where we held our launch event today. It would make those schools among the first K-12 buildings in the country to be safe, toxin-free, fully accessible, and zero-carbon; provide additional support for hiring educators and staff, curriculum development, and community partnerships; and vastly increase Title I and IDEA funds going to those schools.

I hope you join me in supporting this bill as we work with Congress to deliver a better future for our youth. For more info click here to read the text of the bill and click here to read a summary of the bill.

Peace and Love, 

Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16)