In response to the President-elect Joe Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” Anna Maria Chávez, Executive Director and CEO of the National School Boards Association (NSBA), issued the following statement:

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought the existing need for public education funding to the forefront and exposed stark inequities in education across the country. Since the outbreak of the virus, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) has represented the voices of the federation’s 49 state associations and the U.S. territory of the Virgin Islands to advocate for emergency funding for public schools to help support more than 50 million students.

“We applaud President-elect Biden for heeding our recommendations and delivering critically needed aid to the public school districts at the frontline of combatting this pandemic. This will ensure that the educators and school board members with the best knowledge and awareness of community needs have the tools to serve their students, who are the key to building a more equitable country.

“During the past year, NSBA also launched our Public School Transformation Now! initiative to put our public school students and their individual needs at the center of learning, as well as our Dismantling Institutional Racism in Education (DIRE) initiative to fight for a more just and equitable education system. Public schools need local funding to transform learning for each student in every local school by providing a more student-centered and personalized learning approach to equip America’s students with the skills that will prepare them for the fast evolving twenty-first century.

“With increased funding for public schools at the local level, leaders can better provide safe schooling now and turn their focus to transforming learning and improving equity for students.”