From the Office of Senator Kerry

Thursday, February 10, 2000

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John. F. Kerry today proposed the creation of a "21st Century Early Learning and Education Trust Fund." This trust fund would lock up a portion of the budget surpluses – $2.2 billion this year, $30 billion over five years, and nearly $170 billion over ten years fir education and learning – and dedicate that money to early learning and education. This fund would constitute 20 percent of the most conservative CBO estimate of the on-budget surplus over the next ten years.

"In poll after poll of public opinion, Americans tell us they are most deeply concerned about the quality of education in our country – and yet today only one penny of every dollar spent by the federal government goes toward education. Our budget is out of whack with our priorities. By creating an education trust fund with just a slice of these historic budget surpluses, we would build a budgetary firewall, ensuring that states and local school districts would have the resources to raise student achievement," said Senator Kerry.

"The success of education reform at the local level – in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston – remind us of the difference that we can make by increasing accountability, maintaining high standards, recruiting the best teachers, increasing public school choice and competition, and reducing the average class size. To bring these advances to every school, we must empower reformers to turn our schools around – and I believe we must make that commitment in the way we protect and invest a portion of the federal budget surpluses which have attracted so much attention in Washington."

The education trust fund would operate similarly to the Social Security trust fund. Trust fund revenue would not be available for anything other than early learning and education investments. Senator Kerry's proposal stipulates that funds held by the education trust fund could only be used to finance investments in improving the quality of early learning through secondary education above the current, inflation-adjusted baseline.